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REYIEW 

OF THE 

LECTURES OF ¥M. A. SMITH, D. D, 

ON THE 

PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY, 



AS EXHIBITED IN THE 



INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY 
IN THE UNITED STATES: 



"WITH T H 



DUTIES OF MASTERS TO SLAVES. 

IN A 

SERIES OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR. 

BY REV. JOHN H. POV^ER, D. D. 



CINCINNATI: 

PUBLISHED BY SAVORMSTEDT & POE, 
FOR THE AUTHOR. 

R. P. THOMPSON, PRINTER. 
1859. 



ts 



\ 



l^^'l 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, 

BY JOHN n. POWER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District 
of Ohio. 



"L % 



1 






PREFACE. 



Rev. William A. Smith, D. D. 

Bear Sir, — As, in reviewing your lectures on 
" The Philosophy and Practice of Slavery," I have 
addressed myself to the system of American 
slavery through you as one of its ablest advocates, 
I deem it due to myself — and others may feel 
some interest in the case — to say in this prefa- 
tory note, that, although I have discussed the sub- 
ject with a pointedness which I believe its magni- 
tude and character merit, I have not, knowingly 
or with intention, treated you personally with the 
least discourtesy whatever. I have found much in 
your book that has surprised me ; some things that 
might seem to impHcate your integrity or your 
intelligence, and some of them, as I conceive, in- 
compatible with the moral principles of the Gos- 
pel; but in exhibiting their real or supposed char- 
acter, errors, and consequences, I have not allowed 

1 



2 PREFACE. 

myself to impute to you any other than sincere 
and honest motives and purposes. And while I 
am at issue with you on all the vital points in the 
system of slavery, and have discussed them with 
frankness, I have no other than feelings of Chris- 
tian kindness and respect for you personally. If I 
have written any thing which may seem to be se- 
vere, I claim that it be understood as applying — 
not personally, but — to the system of slavery 
which I oppose. Were it not for the fact, that 
many have not yet learned to distinguish between 
an exposition of a man's real or supposed errors, 
and an attack upon the reputation or motives 
of the man himself, this notice and explanation 
would not be at all necessary. There is one 
thing, however, connected with this discussion I 
regret; namely, these letters, however harmless you 
may judge them to be, will not be permitted to 
circulate in the south, notwithstanding you have 
suggested that "the duty of thoroughly investi- 
gating the subject seems to be laid upon the coun- 
try as a moral necessity." 

The south generally are either not allowed, or 
are not disposed, to see but one side of this ques- 



PREFACE. 3 

tion. So true is this, that it would not be hazard- 
ing much pecuniarily to proffer a few thousand 
copies of these letters to the south simply on the 
terms that you should recommend the reading of 
them by slave-owners, and a promise on their part 
to read them. That class is not generally willing 
to look the system of slavery, with all its conse- 
quences here and hereafter, full in the face ; though 
in not a few instances, as they approach the future 
world, the system looks them in the face, and fear- 
ful of the results there of claiming the right of 
property in the persons of men, women, and chil- 
dren in this world, and of transmitting that claim 
to their posterity, in their ^' last will and testamenf'' 
they relinquish all such claim by emancipating 
their slaves, virtually saying, "/ dare not meet the 
consequences in eternity F^ 

Praying that the author of the lectures reviewed 
and the writer of the letters in which they are re- 
viewed may yet "see eye to eye," in all things 
that will most glorify God and benefit man, 
I remain yours, most respectfully, 

John H. Power. 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER I . 

INTRODUCTORY. 

The claims set up for slavery will awaken opposition to the system — 
Individuals not responsible for the system — DifiFerenco between the 
case of individuals and that of the system — If the principle of slav- 
ery being more firmly fixed in the south than ever before, is evi- 
dence of the purity of the system, th« fact of the increasing and 
settled opposition to it in the north is equally clear proof of its 
corruption — The fact that the influence of slavery has increased in 
despite of opposition, no more proves that it is morally right than 
the same thing proves that intemperance and profanity are morally 
right — Its progress is attributable alone to its commercial value, 
and not to its moral purity or worth Pages 11-27 

LETTER II. 

ERRORS IN THE DEFINITION OF SLAVERY 
EXPOSED. 

Logic and ethics defective as to the relations and claims of justice 
and benevolence — Erroneous definition of slavery vitiates this 
whole scheme of philosophy — Unwarrantable use and abuse of 
terms — Control by the will of another not the principle, but a mere 
accident of the principle of slavery — Such defense of slavery will 
corrupt the public mind and depreciate self-respect — The defense 
contradicts itself in making government both master, owner, and 
agent of the governed — Radical error in assuming that servant and 
slave are convertible terms and mean the same thing — All slaves 
are servants, but all servants are not slaves 29-51 

5 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER III. 

THE TRUE DEFINITION AND CHARACTER OF 
SLAVERY. 

The true definition of slavery — American slavery — The right of 
property in the persons of men — The defense contradicts itself, un- 
less it can separate the rami from the slave — The latter is impossible, 
the former is palpable — The history of slavery sustains the truth of 
our definition — Any other view makes slaveholders real barbari- 
ans — " The philosophy and practice of slavery " absohttely irrecon- 
cilable with the facts in the case Pages 52-70 

'letter IV, 

SUBORDINATES UNDER JUST GOVERN M.E NTS ARE 
NOT SLAVES . 

The falsity of the philosophy of slavery demonstrated by the facts in 
the general government of the United States — And the state gov- 
ernments — Particularly that of the slaveholding states refutes the 
"philosophy" — God has excluded slavery from all the relations he 
has ordained, and the governments he has formed, for human so- 
ciety — Under just governments subordinates are parties in form- 
ing their relations — The system of slavery allows no such right — 
Just governments protect the reciprocal rights of subordinates 
and superiors — Slavery provides no such protection, but degrades 
the slave to a level with the beast — Just governments elevate 
their subjects — The system of slavery depresses and ruins its 
victims 71-105 

LETTER V. 

ERRONEOUS DEFINITION OF NATURAL RIGHTS 
EXPOSED. 

Doctrine of natural rights — Men concede some rights, under legiti- 
mate governments, to secure protection in the use of others — Ar- 
gument defective in changing the terms in the premises and the 
conclusion — Natural rights are the good — The good is natural 
EIGHTS — The will of God not the rule of right only as it conforms 
to what is right in itself independent of the Divine will — The fal- 



CONTENTS. 7 

sity and absurdity of these doctrines — The cause of slavery de- 
mands this denial of the sovereign will — "Extreme form of despot- 
ism the natural right of infants and slaves" — The whole position 
false Pagks 106-128 

LETTER VI. 

THE TRUE CHARACTER OF NATURAL RIGHTS 
OPPOSED TO SLAVERY. 

The intellectual and moral constitution of man opposed to the idea 
of property — God has not recognized him as property, nor author- 
ized others to do so — The true relation and claims of justice and 
benevolence — The development, maturity, and use of man's natural 
powers, intellectual, moral, and physical, utterly incompatible with 
the claims and operations of slavery 129-147 

LETTER VII. 

FALSE DOCTRINE OF NATURAL R I GH T S A P PL I E D T O 
GOVERNMENT. 

*^ The doctrines of natural rights applied to government" — The de- 
pravity of man is merely deprivation — Man's " lower physical na- 
ture " at war with his " pure intelligence " — According to this 
doctrine the work of conversion must be performed on the body, 
and not the soul — Slaves must be placed under an extreme despot- 
ism, to prevent the destruction of their liberty, by the law of 
habit — The remedy worse than the evil — The assumed analogy 
between the condition of infants and that of slaves false 
and absurd — The system of slavery makes '* savages " of 
slaves, and then, because they are such, claims the right to 
enslave them , 148-166 

LETTER VIII. 
THE ASSUMPTION THAT BECAUSE GOD SANC- 
TIONS CIVIL GOVERNMENT HE SANCTIONS 
SLAVERY, EXPOSED. 
God sanctions human governments, and human governments sanc- 
tion slavery ; therefore God sanctions slavery — The absurdity ex- 
posed — The true state of the case — Patriarchal slavery considered — 
Slavery among the Jews in the days of the Savior examined — The 
supposed allusions to slavery among the Jews in the parables and 
discourses of the Savior — Though slaves are not literally "brutes," 
the slave laws treat them all as property 167-186 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER IX. 

SLAVERY LEGALIZED BY THE LENGTH OF TIME 

IT HAS EXISTED IN THE COUNTRY, 

EXPOSED. 

Slavery legalized and rendered morally right by the length of time 
which has elapsed since its introduction into this country — The 
utter falsity of the position exposed — No analogy between robbing 
others of their lands, and robbing men of their liberty — Time may 
legalize land titles, but can never give one man the right of prop- 
erty in another — The African slave-trade was originated and sus- 
tained by public opinion in Great Britain and America, therefore 
it was morally right — On this principle every practice, however 
vile and corrupt, that public opinion sustains is morally right — 
The idea that the African slave-trade was a " missionary God- 
send" intensely absurd Pages 187-212 

LETTER X. 

GOVERNMENT SUITED TO THE SLAVES IN 
THIS COUNTRY. 

The form of government suited to the slaves in this country — It must 
be either a military or patriarchal despotism — Slaveholders the 
only persons competent to judge — The right of property is the 
issue — Slaveholders being a party have no right to decide the 
question — " The necessity of the institution of domestic slavery " — 
As the north have not allowed the Africans among them political 
equality, the south have a right to enslave the Africans among 
them — The free people of color have not materially improved their 
condition — Slavery is the natural state of the Africans — The his- 
tory of Liberia contradicts these positions 213-237 

LETTER XI. 

EMANCIPATION AND EDUCATION DOCTRINES 
OFSLAVERY EXPOSED. 

*' Emancipation doctrines discussed" — Emancipation in every form 
opposed — The domestic element in the system of slavery the agent 
in civilizing the slaves — Under this domestic element they were 
uncivilized two centuries ago, and they are yet uncivilized — How 
long will it take to civilize them under the same system ? — " Teach- 



CONTENTS. 9 

ing the slaves to read and -write " — The education of the slaves is 
incompatible with the "vigorous operation of the principle of slav- 
ery " — The slaves must not be taught to read — The means em- 
ployed to strengthen and perpetuate slavery may in the end de- 
stroy it Pages 238-257 

LETTER XII. 

FRATERNAL SPIRIT OF ROMANISM AND SLAV- 
ERY — DUTIES OF MASTERS TO SLAVES. 

'* The conservative influence of the African population on tho 
south " — The south may be called upon to protect the liberties 
of the north — The north will never be called on to protect the 
south — The probabilities reversed — The analogy and sympathy be- 
tween Romanism and American slavery — In the event of revolu-" 
tion — The case of foreign-born citizens and that of the slaves 
contrasted — " The duties of masters to their slaves " — Some good 
advice — Will not be likely to be observed — Incongruities — Absurd- 
ities 258-278 

LETTER XIII. 

THE OLD TESTAMENT AND SLAVERY. 

The system of American slavery examined in the light of the Old 
Testament Scriptures — Abraham and slavery — Slavery and the 
Decalogue — The Hebrew code and slavery — The twenty-fifth chap- 
ter of Leviticus and slavery — If slavery existed among the He- 
brews with the Divine approbation, it was either a part of their 
institutions, or it was not — If the latter, slavery is not honest in 
quoting it as a part of their code — If the former, it was abolished 
by Divine authority with their whole system, and can afford no 
support to slavery 279-309 

LETTER XIV. 

THE NEW TESTAMENT AND SLAVERY. 

Slavery examined by the New Testament — The doctrines and teach- 
ing of Christ — Condemned by both — The moral principles he es- 
tablished if obeyed would annihilate slavery — The doctrines and 
teachings of the apostles — The same result — Servitude among the 
Jews in the time of Christ and his apostles — Let as many servants 
as are under the yoke, examined 310-328 



10 CONTENTS. 



LETTER XV. 

THE SPIRIT AND DESIGN OF THE GOSPEL AND 
SLAVERY. 

Does the spirit and genius of the Gospel sustain slavery? — Men sus- 
tain individual relations, and owe individual duties to God which 
allow of no substitute — The Gospel recognizes these relations, and 
requires the discharge of the duties — The Gospel is opposed to ev- 
ery practice and institution, whatever may be its name or charac- 
ter, that impedes its progress, resists its influence, or hinders its 
intended results — Slavery is chargeable with resisting the Gospel 
in all these respects — It shuts out light from the minds of its sub- 
jects — Keeps them in ignorance — Desecrates all the domestic rela- 
tions — Degrades men to the condition of brutes — The Gospel assails 
it in every element and from every point — The conflict is hastening 
to an issue — The system must perish, or Divine judgments visit 
the nation Pages 329-348 

LETTER XVI. 

SLAVERY A NATIONAL SIN NATIONAL RE- 
SPONSIBILITY. 

Treatment of the system in the future — Must be confined to its 
present limits — Is a national sin — The free states have patronized 
and sustained it by consuming its products — Moral responsibili- 
ties of the free states — They can prevent its extension — The 
Christian and civilized world should protest against the desecration 
of the law of marriage among the slaves — No slaveholder should 
bo allowed membership in the Church, or Christian communion, 
till he denounces the desecration, and uses his influence to correct 
it — The slave children should be educated — The free states should 
aid in this work — All children born of slave parents should be 
free — The free states and general government should provide some 
compensation for those who arc willing to emancipate their slaves 
on reasonable terms — The nation through the general govern- 
ment should aid and colonize all who wish to go to Africa — 
This process would relieve this nation from the present evils 
and threatened calamities of slavery, and enlighten, redeem, and 
save Africa 349-369 



REVIEW 



OF THE 



LECTURES OF DR. SMITH 



LETTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

The claims set up for slavery will awaken opposition to the system — 
Individuals not responsible for the system — Difference between the 
case of individuals and that of the system — If the principle of slav- 
ery being more firmly fixed in the south than ever before, is evi- 
dence of the purity of the system, the fact of the increasing and 
settled opposition to it in the north is equally clear proof of its 
corruption — The fact that the influence of slavery has increased in 
despite of opposition, no more proves that it is morally right than 
the same thing proves that intemperance and profanity are morally 
right — Its progress is attributable alone to its commercial value, 
and not to its moral purity or worth. 

Rev. Dr. W. A. Smith, — I have just finished 
the third careful reading of your '^Philosophj and 
Practice of Slavery ;''* and as it is not always van- 
ity in authors to desire to know something of the 
opinion of their readers, and presuming that you 
are not singular in that respect, I have concluded 

to submit to you some of my views of your book; 

11 



12 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

and as you have given us your late work in the 
form of lectures, I have, in my strictures on it, 
chosen the epistolary form. I have long desired 
to see the subject of which you treat discussed by 
some one of the ablest Christian philosophers and 
scholars of the south, but have not been gratified 
till I obtained your work. And though I may 
differ from you on most of the material points dis- 
cussed, I shall take pleasure in awarding to you 
full praise on all in which I may beheve your in- 
genious and learned labors may serve the cause of 
truth and righteousness. And I will here say, in 
general terms, if your book should be generally 
read by the American people, I think it will do 
much good. First It will correct the errors 
of those who suppose, and teach, that there are 
but few or no difficulties in the way of slavery 
emancipation. However your imagination may 
have led you astray on some features of the sub- 
ject, you have furnished facts and reasons suffi- 
cient to convince reasonable men that there are 
real embarrassments in the case, which require the 
best judgment of the ablest and best men in the 
land to surmount. But the difficulties are not 
insuperable. Secondly. Your book will do good in 
another way. It will confirm the doubts of many 
of that numerous class in the south, of whom you 
speak, that the moral character of the system of 



AND PRACTICE OP SLAVERY. 13 

slavery is questionable, if it does not convince 
them that the system is really indefensible on 
moral and Christian principles. Thirdly. It will 
also diminish the confidence of some of the friends 
of the system, when they see that a man of your 
talents, learning, and zeal has to leave the moral- 
ity of the system so obscure, and the system 
itself so vulnerable to attack at all its vital points ; 
but, fourthly, your book will operate powerfully in 
another direction. The character you give to 
slavery; the ^'despotism" you claim for the sys- 
tem; the demands set up for its unhmited exten- 
sion; the ofiensive insinuations that where it does 
not exist civilization is defective; the invidious 
comparisons of the free white laboring classes with 
slaves; the superior intelligence and civilization 
claimed for owners — all this, and much more of 
similar character, in connection with your high 
position in the south, and the fact that the south- 
ern press, secular and religious, has indorsed your 
book as a fair exponent of the system and of 
southern views of the subject, will appeal to the 
moral sense, Christianity, patriotism, and self- 
respect of every friend of liberty, to resist such 
despotic claims and the system in which this "ex- 
treme despotism" is inherent. This spirit, when 
fully developed and organized — and your book will 
contribute no httle to its consummation — will say 



14 KEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

to the system, "Thus far shalfc thou come and no 
further," be the consequences what they may. I 
fully agree with you when you say, "The duty of 
thoroughly investigatmg it" — the system of Amer- 
ican slavery — "seems to be laid upon the country 
as a moral necessity." (Page 29.) I have long 
entertained similar views, amounting almost to a 
conviction of duty, but from a love of peace, and 
because a suitable occasion did not present itself, I 
have deferred it till the present. When I read 
your " Philosophy and Practice of Slavery," and 
saw the high grounds taken, the enormous claims 
set up for the system, the fearless manner in which 
you had executed your work in condemning the 
pulpit, denouncing doctors, reproving statesmen, 
and "teaching senators wisdom," I felt that the 
occasion was such as to justify me in "showing my 
opinion." From my personal acquaintance with 
you, and knowing your firmness in maintaining 
what you believe to be right, and that you concede 
to an opponent all that you would claim for your- 
self, I had no fears that you would abandon the 
true issue, though your system might be sorely 
pressed, or that you would seek rehef in pubhc 
sympathy in a defeat, on the assumption that an 
antagonist was personal or severe. To these gen- 
eral remarks I will add, that while I entertain a 
high regard for you personally, I shall investigate 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 15 

the system of American slavery with a plainness, 
candor, and firmness; bearing, I hope, some pro- 
portion to the importance of the question. I may 
not, however, follow you in consecutive order 
through your lectures, as there is much in them 
that, whether true or false, does not affect the 
cardinal principles of the system. All that is im- 
portant I design to examine. 

Your first lecture, which is introductory to your 
main design, contains some things deserving of no- 
tice, though not essential to the real issue. To 
the inquiry, ^^Is the institution of domestic slavery 
sinful?" you answer: "The affirmative assumes 
that an immense community of southern people, 
of undoubted piety, are, nevertheless, involved in 
great moral deUnquency on the subject of slavery." 
(Page 12.) Many of your readers, less acquainted 
with you than myself, will suspect that you de- 
signed to prejudice the true issue by an appeal 
to the sympathies and prejudices of the south. 
While 1 do not charge you with any thing of the 
kind, I have no doubt that such appeals have done 
much to hinder an impartial investigation of the 
system of American slavery. The logic of this 
quotation is — if the system of slavery is sinful, 
then every one who holds a slave is a sinner; but 
many slaveholders in the south are pious, there- 
fore it is absurd to suppose that slavery is morally 



16 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

wrong. Again, you claim in behalf of the piety 
of the south — you certainly mean the truly Chris- 
tian part of community — that if they consid- 
ered slavery to be wrong they could rid them- 
selves of it. " If government be, as it undoubtedly 
is, the agent of the people, and the people choose, 
they are certainly competent by this agent to free 
themselves from this institution." (Page 13.) This 
reasoning is capitally defective on two main points ; 
and if it does not excite the prejudices of the 
south, neither will it relieve the scruples of the 
conscientious and candid, nor enlighten either the 
south or the north. 1. Your argument requires 
you to assume that the converted and Scripturally 
pious portion of the south have it in their power 
to "free themselves from the institution of slavery," 
by changing the laws and government. This is 
not true, and never was the fact. Then we can 
easily perceive that the system of slavery may be 
sinful, and Christian people be involved in the evil 
consequences without being sinners merely on that 
account; just as a government may engage in a 
system of sinful war, and thereby involve its in- 
nocent subjects in the evils, without those evils 
they, as individuals, may have to endure for a time 
constituting them sinners. Christians in the south, 
as is the fact elsewhere, as Christians^ have no 
control over the civil institutions of the state. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 17 

whether sinful or righteous. If sinful, they may 
have to suffer many evils under them before they 
are changed; but, as citkens, under free govern- 
ments such as ours, they are, in proportion to their 
number and influence, in that degree responsible 
for the character of the civil institutions of the 
state ; and if they are involved in the sin of cor- 
rupt institutions, it is not for bearing with Chris- 
tian patience the evils they, as individuals^ and as 
Christians, can not control, but for not exerting 
their influence as Christian citizens to correct the 
sinful institutions of the state. 

What the responsibilities of Christian citizens in 
the south are in regard to the system of slavery I 
shall not stop now to inquire. But if you say your 
argument does not assume that the Christians — the 
truly pious — in the south have the power to free 
themselves from slavery by changing the govern- 
ment, then the piety of southern Christians is 
thrown out of the c^uestionj and the case fafls un- 
der the head of southern politics; and your refer- 
ence to the piety of Christians in the south was 
not only irrelevant and altogether useless, but un- 
fortunate, and may excite prejudices that will pre- 
vent, instead of aid, a sober judgment in the case. 
A second and stifl more serious defect in your po- 
sition is, you wholly ignore the radical distinction 
between the system of slavery, as such, and the 



18 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

case of individuals holding slaves under the sys- 
tem, and treat the subject as if the individual case 
contained all that is embodied in the system. By 
this process it would seem to be your design to 
extort the concession that the system is morally 
rights or to require that each individual who holds 
slaves under the system should be denounced as a 
sinner; neither of which well-informed Christians 
will do. Your dilemma may embarrass some 
minds till the light of facts renders it harmless. 
That there is a plain distinction between the sys- 
tem of slavery and the case of individuals holding 
slaves under that system you will not deny; but 
as others less informed may deny it, I submit a few 
remarks on it here. By the system, I mean that 
government in a state or community which au- 
thorizes the holding of slaves as property within 
the limits of such state. By the ease of individu- 
als. I mean such persons as, in their individual 
character, hold slaves under the provisions of that 
system. From this view it is seen at once that 
the system, as such, and the case of an individual 
under the s}^tem are widely-different things. 1. 
The system must exist as a code before any one 
can become a slaveholder by its authority. 2. In- 
dividuals may change their relations to the sys- 
tem by being slaveholders to-day, and to-morrow 
disposing of them, thereby becoming non-slave- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 19 

holders, while the system remains perfectly un- 
changed ; whereas, if the two were not entirely dis- 
tinct, to change the one would equally change the 
other. 3. The system may contain principles and 
powers which individuals may never use or exer- 
cise. There are other points of difference between 
the system and individuals equally clear, but these 
are sufficient to remove all doubts of the fact. No 
right-minded man believes that the mere legal re- 
lation of owner and slave is, under all circum- 
stances, in itself sinful ; for, if it were, as men are 
frequently brought into this legal relation by the 
'^operation of law" without their knowledge or 
consent, the absurdity would follow that the sys- 
tem could make men sinners whenever it pleased, 
without any action or will of their own ! In the 
light of these facts it can easily be seen, that al- 
though the system may be sinful^ men may be 
involved in the evil as individuals, without being 
sinners on that account merely, if they do not use 
its sinful powers, and if they sustain the legal re- 
lation, in the fear of God, as the best they can 
do for the slave and themselves for the time being, 
with a view to his ultimate freedom, and if they 
use their influence as citizens that all bad laws and 
systems may be corrected or substituted by those 
that are just and right. I can but regret that 
3^ou thought it necessary to connect a defense of 



20 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

the purity and justice of the system of American 
slavery with the piety of southern Christians; for 
while, from my personal knowledge of both, I 
highly appreciate the piety of many in the south 
who sustain this relation, I am bound by the same 
principle of candor to oppose the system as cor- 
rupt and sinful. 

Having shown that your appeal in behalf of the 
piety of Christians in the south was wholly un- 
necessary, and, also, that the merits of the ques- 
tion — whether the system of American slavery is 
sinful or not — has nothing to do with the piety or 
impiety of individuals, I proceed to notice some 
other matters on which you seem to rely with con- 
siderable confidence, before I come to examine 
your main positions in support of the system of 
slavery. I shall not notice here your charges 
against Jefferson and the Methodist Episcopal 
Churcli for their opposition to slavery, as the prin- 
ciples involved will be fully examined in another 
place. It is true, indeed, that the doctrines an- 
tagonistic to slavery, emanating from these and 
kindred sources, have been, and still are "incul- 
cated from professors' chairs," as you say, and by 
a thousand other agencies, till the American mind 
is deeply imbued with them; and you have borne 
testimony that this feeling in favor of liberty and 
against slavery is not confined to "the north," 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 21 

but lias taken deep hold on the minds of many in 
the south. You appear, however, to comfort your- 
self and those of your school — I do not mean 
the literary institution over which you preside with 
so much ability, but fro'slavcry men both north 
and south — with the asBiimption that "slavery by 
reason of causes which are evidently, though mys- 
teriously, at work, is this day more firmly grounded 
in the confidence of the great mass of the south- 
ern people, and more extensively ramified and 
interlocked with other civil institutions of the 
ivhoh country, than at any former period of its his- 
tory!" (Page 23.) In this you evidently intend 
to implicate divine Providence in favor of the sys- 
tem of American slavery. Hence you add, " Truly 
this is a phenomenon for which the philosophy of 
the day will not account." And assuming also 
that the "fixed" fact of slavery, as now existing 
in the country, can not be accounted for on the 
supposition that the system is wrong — is sinful — 
you kindly furnish a key to unlock the mys- 
tery; namely, that the system of slavery, "so po- 
tent in practical results, and so heedless of the 
fierce war that is waged against it, is, after all, 
underlaid hj a vast mine of principle — pure, essen- 
tial truthr (Page 28.) 

Now, if the assumed or real prosperity of 
slavery can be clearly accounted for without any 



22 KEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

such mysterious interference of Providence, as you 
suppose, and if the system has no such foundation 
in either truth or righteousness as is claimed for 
it, to say the least, a beautiful conclusion will be 
totally spoiled! You have attempted to throw 
an awe and mystery around slavery that have no 
existence in fact. It is said an argument that 
proves too much proves nothing; your process of 
reasoning and assuming will prove almost all the 
wickedness in the world to be equally as pious as 
the system of slavery. For example, the manu- 
facture, vending, and use of ardent spirits have 
been opposed by the best men and brightest tal- 
ents of the nation; have been assailed from the 
pulpit, the bar, and the bench; by the press, secular 
and religious; by deliberative bodies, ecclesiastical 
and civil ; by prohibitory laws and heavy penalties, 
and still the business — "so potent in practical re- 
sults, and so heedless of the fierce war waged 
against it" — has gone on with increasing velocity^ 
destroying domestic peace, making widows and 
orphans, producing poverty and ignorance, staining 
the land with tears and blood, and bearing its vic- 
tims to eternity at the rate of fifty thousand a 
year, till it has slain its millions — still it "is a 
great practical truth, a fixed fact in the country 1" 
and "is this day more firmly grounded," . . . 
"ramiQed and interlocked with" the articles of 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 23 

trade, and used as a beverage in "the whole 
country, than at any former period of its history!" 
And is the solution of this "mystery" to be 
found in "a vast mine of principle — pure, essential 
truth underlining" the business? You revolt at 
the idea! And well you may; and were I se- 
riously to urge that as the true interpretation of 
the case, you would justly charge me with consum- 
mate folly, if not with positive madness. But 
how will you account for this "fixed fact?" You 
reply, it is the commercial value of the busi- 
ness — the dollars and cents — that stimulates and 
inflames the depravity and cupidity of men, and 
that constitutes the life and power of the business, 
so that it overrides all opposition and triumphs in 
the face of its powerful opposers. You tell me at 
once, destroy its commercial value and make it a 
losing business as a whole, and even legislation 
could not keep it alive, and when dead it would 
not have friends enough among all its present ad- 
mirers to give it a decent burial ! Now, though I 
do not claim a perfect analogy between the two 
systems, or the manner in which individuals be- 
come connected with them, I fearlessly maintain 
that the active, life-giving power of the system of 
American slavery is precisely the same, and the 
marvelous "causes" that are working so "mys- 
teriously" in its favor are nothing more nor less 

8 



24 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

than its commercial value as a whole. As this will 
be shown more at large in another place, I will only 
add here, destroy the profitableness in dollars and 
cents of the system of slavery as a whole, and let 
it become a "sinking business," and Pharaoh was 
not more ardent and anxious, when all Egypt was 
in tears and lamentations for the death of the first- 
born in every house, to hasten the departure of 
the Hebrews from his land, than the south would 
be to free themselves from this "venerable, patri- 
archal institution!" It was on this principle that it 
declined in the northern states and has concen- 
trated itself mainly in the south. In the north, 
in our early history, the system served a tempo- 
rary purpose, and it was retained and used just as 
long as it was profitable. When it became un- 
profitable, if not a losing business, they abohshed 
the system. There was no more mystery, benev- 
olence, or moral virtue in the north abolishing 
slavery than there is in a man abandoning a busi- 
ness,' at best of doubtful morality, when it is not 
only yielding no profit but bringing him in debt ! 
While I award no moral virtue to the north for 
abolishing slavery, I ask your special attention to 
a fact, as it turns all the force of your very solemn 
presumption in favor of slavery against that sys- 
tem. Since slavery has been abolished in the 
north, not only have their resources of comfort and 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 25 

wealth been developed, and the people advanced 
in literature and the arts and sciences, to a de- 
gree beyond precedent, considering their soil and 
chmate; but a deep antislavery feeling has taken 
hold of the public mind, "and which" — I quote 
you in defense of slavery — "continues to strike its 
roots deeper and deeper in all the relations of so- 
ciety," and "so potent in practical results and 
so lieedless of the fierce war that is waged against 
it," that the indehble conviction is that its prac- 
tical results can only be accounted for by assuming 
that "it is, after all, underlaid somev/here by a vast 
mine of principles — pure^ essential truths — which 
are firmly rooted in the behef of all civilized and 
honest m.en." . . . Dear Doctor, I do not 
avail myself of this occasion to turn your arms 
against yourself and your system, because I deem 
it important to the main question, but to let our 
readers see how weak a strong man may be in de- 
fense of a bad cause, and to apprise them of the 
fact that, notwithstanding your high position and 
weight of character as a scholar and Christian phi- 
losopher, your speculations, even on minor points, 
much more on grave matters, must be received 
with caution and not without careful examination. 
In closing my strictures on your introductory 
lecture, allow me most respectfully to suggest that 
your visions of peace on the subject of American 



26 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

slavery, on the terms you propose, are wholly de- 
lusive. On the contrary, if your claims for the 
system are a fair exponent of the views and feel- 
ings of the south, your '^ Philosoj^hj and Practice 
of Slavery'' is little less than a stereotyped decla- 
ration of war! If the American pulpifc must de- 
fend slavery; the Church defend slavery; politicians 
and statesmen defend slavery; congressmen and 
senators defend slavery; the doctors and literati of 
the land defend slavery; the "text-books" — yours 
being a specimen — in the literary institutions of 
our country defend slavery; if apprentices, clerks, 
subordinates of every kind, children, wives, moth- 
ers, citizens, must all admit themselves to be a 
species of slaves, and defend slavery, as the 
price and terms of "peace" — peace on the subject 
will be a stranger in this repubhc till the whole 
system is eradicated and the land purified from its 
pollutions. I devoutly hope the claims of the sys- 
tem, so grossly offensive to freemen, may be so 
modified as to prevent the painful results that 
must otherwise follow. 

Before I close this interview permit me to guard 
you against an error into which you, and the de- 
fenders of slavery, are liable to fall. It is com- 
mon with you to set down at once, and without 
further inquiry, all who oppose the system of slav- 
ery as "' northern abolitionists, fanatics, socialists, 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 27 

agrarians/' etc., and with this judgment they are 
dismissed without a further hearing. I wholly dis- 
claim that character. I was born and raised in the 
midst of slavery, and had reached the years of 
manhood before ever my feet pressed the soil in a 
free state. I was converted to God in a slavehold- 
ing state, and what ministerial character I have 
was formed in the midst of slavery, preaching to 
the masters and slaves. I have a southern con- 
stitution, and am southern in my sympathies as 
far as the south is right. And with all this I am 
uncompromisingly antislavery. Nor did I get my 
antislavery views and feelings from the north. Be- 
fore my heart was changed by grace, or I had pro- 
fessed Christianity, or united with the Church, in 
prosecuting my worldly business with the view of 
accumulating wealth, I came to the point where I 
had to become a slave-owner or change my busi- 
ness plans. I paused, read the Bible, examined the 
subject; and, in the light of the Bible alone, de- 
cided forever against the system of involuntary, 
perpetual slavery. My convictions of its wrong 
have long since become a part of my nature — my 
very being! When I made this decision I had 
never read a page or paragraph outside of the 
Bible against the system; nor had I heard a ser- 
mon, lecture, or speech against it. Since then I 
have examined the subject thoroughly, which has 



28 EEVIEAV OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

only confirmed my convictions that the system is 
not of God. 

Hoping to address you again soon, I remain 
} our southern, Bible-beheving friend and reviewer, 

J. H. P. 



AND PK ACT ICE OF SLAVERY. 29 



LETTER II. 

ERRORS IN THE DEFINITION OF SLAVERY 

EXPOSED. 

• 
Logic and ethics defective as to the relations and claims of justice 

and benevolence — Erroneous definition of slavery vitiates this 

whole scheme of philosophy — Unwarrantable use and abuse of 

terras — Control by the will of another not the principle, but a mere 

accident of the principle of slavery — Such defense of slavery will 

corrupt the public mind and depreciate self-respect — The defense 

contradicts itself in making government both master, owner, and 

agent of the governed — Radical error in assuming that servant and 

slave are convertible terms and mean the same thing — All slaves 

are servants, but all servants are not slaves. 

Rw. Dr. Smith, — At my earliest convenience I 
address you again on the question at issue between 
us. I regret that in discussing this grave subject 
you did not find it convenient to be more method- 
ical in your arrangement. Nearly every topic 
of importance to the main question has been ex- 
tended in detached forms through most of your 
lectures. This must diminish the interest of your 
book with the great majority of your readers, and 
very much increase the labor of reviewing it. It 
is not till we reach page 151 that we gather dis- 
tinctly your main points. There you say, "That 



30 EEVIEW OF TUE PHILOSOPHY 

the abstract principle of the institution of slavery 
and the principles of natural rights coincide, and 
that both have the unqualified approbation of holy 
Scripture, can not be successfully controverted." 
Instead of discussing those points separately, and 
bringing each out in its own strength, you have 
mixed them up and run them through a hundred 
and fifty pages. I will not, however, complain, as 
you had "a natural right" to choose your own 
course, as I shall also choose mine in reviewing 
you. In this second lecture, you enter with com- 
mendable courage upon the discussion of "the ab- 
stract PRINCIPLE OF THE INSTITLT^ION OF DOMESTIC 

slavery;" and to prepare the way for a defense of 
the system, notwithstanding the "many cases in 
which slaveholders do wrong" by its express 
authority, you tell us it is "absurd" to suppose 
that because "an abstract principle of action being 
right, the action itself is right." To illustrate you 
give the case of "A.," who "justly owes B. one 
hundred dollars," and as it took all of A.'s property 
to pay the debt and left his wife and children to 
suffer, you pronounce exacting payment "a very 
wicked" act. (Pages 32, 33.) "Because," you 
affirm, "this is a case in which the claims of benevo- 
lence march before the claims of justice." But 
what would you do. Doctor, if B.'s wife and chil- 
dren were equally destitute and suffering, till A. paid 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 31 

his just debt? I hope you will settle this delicate 
question between those neighbors more satisfactorily 
than it now is. In the mean time your logic has 
blundered in having justice claiming and author- 
izing in the premises and benevolence denying and 
controlhng in the conclusion. Any principle that 
would oppose and defeat the claims of justice is 
not benevolence, but injustice. I do not notice 
this defect in your logic and ethics because it is 
important to the issue, but for another purpose. 

It is a rule of evidence, I believe, if a witness 
testifies falsely in one case he is not to be believed 
in any. The principle of this rule, though in a 
milder form, is applicable to many others besides 
legal subjects. For example, the arguments and 
conclusions of a philosopher and logician, who falls 
into serious errors on minor points which are not 
difficult to comprehend, are not to be received on 
grave and important matters which are much more 
obscure, without the greatest caution; if, indeed, 
they should be received as authority at all. 

You have taken great pains to define and to 
defend your definition of the "Principle of the 
System of Slavery," to suit the main object and 
end had in view in your lectures. This, doubtless, 
3'Ou saw was indispensable to your success, as 
you have made it not only the chief corner-stone 
of your superstructure, but also the key-stone of 



32 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

the principal arch in the pro-slavery temple! 
Should this foundation, which you have laid with 
so much care and learned labor, fail, the temple it- 
self, as far as your defense is concerned, will be as 
hopelessly ruined as that of the Philistines' Dagon 
when its pillars were removed. No real or sup- 
posed dehcacy involved in the case, neither the 
high respect I entertain for you personally, shall 
deter me from fully testing its strength. You 
truthfully say that ''the definite meaning of the 
phrase, ahstrad ^:>rmc^};/c of slcwery^ is indispensa- 
ble in this investigation." (Page 37.) You pro- 
ceed : " What, then, is the imndpU of the system 
of domestic slavery? Observe that is the princi- 
ple for which we inquire. What, then, is the sys- 
tem itself? For — to speak with strict philosoph- 
ical propriety — our idea of the system is the 
chronological condition of our idea of the princi- 
ple, as our idea of the principle is the logical con- 
dition of our idea of the system." (Page 38.) 
This, Doctor, is surely a most unpropitious com- 
mencement to aiTive at "the definite meaning" of 
this important question; and as I am sure no man 
of only good sound common-sense can derive any 
light from it, and as it will cost me too much time 
to enUghten it I I will dismiss this part of your 
"definite meaning," by assuring you that if men 
have to swallow such a dark and mysterious dose 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 33 

as this in order to become iwo-davery^ your book 
will make but few converts among men of good 
sense. 

As if conscious of this yourself, your next effort 
is more intelligible. "The system is made up of 
two correlative relations — master and slave. Here 
there are but two ideas — the idea of master and 
the idea of slave, as correlatives. These are all 
the ideas that enter into the system as a system 
merely. Whatever abstract principle, therefore, 
this system envelops, is to be found in these two 
terms. It need not, and should not, be sought for 
any where else; for these two relations make the 
whole system." (Page 38.) . . . "What, then, 
is the correlative meaning of these terms? Mas- 
ter. . . . The word signifies a chief director; 
one wlio governs or directs either ?nen or business. 
The leading idea is that of governor by his own 
will. Slave. The derivation of this word is not a 
settled question. There is no difficulty, however, 
in fixing the meaning — one tvho is subject to the, 
will or direction of another. As a concrete, master 
means one who is governing, in some iiarticidar 
instance or form, by his own will; and slave, one 
who is so governed in some 2'^ articular instance.'''' 
. . . "And whether they are considered as ab- 
stract or concrete terms, they are correlatives — the 
one implies the other. A si/stem of slavery is a 



34 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

state or order of things established by law or cus- 
tom, in which one set of men are the masters to a 
given extent, and another the slaves to that ex- 
tent. Domestic slavery is an instance in which 
the order or state of things constituting the sys- 
tem itself is made a part of the family relation. 
The head of the family is the master^ and the 
slave is subject, as to the use of his time and la- 
bor, to the control of the master, as the other 
members of the family." . . . "Hence, as 
the abstract idea of master is governing by one's 
own will, and that of slave is submission or sub- 
jection to such control," . . . "it follows that 
the ah stract principle of slavery is the general prin- 
ciple of submission or subjection to control by the 
will of another^ (Pages 39, 40.) . . . "Every 
condition into which it enters is a state of slavery 
to the extent in which it does so enter." . . . 
" Subjection is the being put under the control of 
another. Submission is the delivering of one's self 
to the control of another. The one implies the 
consent of the will and the other does not." . . . 
"Hence, our definition is sufficiently wide to em- 
brace that which is conceded by all." . . . "It 
takes in submission as well as subjection.^'' . . . 
"He who is subjected to such control is a slave; 
and he who submits to such control is not the less 
so." (Page 41.) . . . "Hence, the true 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 35 

philosophical definition of the principle is control 
hy the tuill of another, with its correlative — sub- 
mission or subjection — implied." ... "As 
the whole of the abstract idea of the system of 
slavery is to be found in the terms master and slave 
in correlation, and suhmission and subjection to 
control hj the tvill of another is the whole idea 
contained in the correlative sense of these terms — 
certainly nothing more and nothing less — the defi- 
nition given is the whole, and nothing more, of the 
abstract principle of the institution." (Page 45.) 
. . . "It will readily occur to all intelligent 
minds that this principle enters more or less as an 
essential element into every form of human gov- 
ernment. No government can be appropriate to 
human beings, in their present fallen condition, 
that does not embody this generic element in a 
greater or less degree." (Page 47.) . . . "But 
a state of freedom is the opposite of a state of 
slavery." . . . "Hence, 5e/f-co72/ro/ is the ab- 
stract principle of freedom, as its opposite — control 
hy another — ^is the principle of slavery." (Page 
48.) . . . "Hence, we see that God has ren- 
dered the blessing of civil freedom inseparable 
from the presence and operation of the principle 
of slavery." . . . "Government must place 
its subjects under the operation of the principle 
of slavery in some things, the more elfectually to 



36 HE VIEW or the philosophy 

secure their practical freedom in other things." 
(Page 50.) . . . "Seeing that the abstract 
princi[)le of slavery enters necessarily and essen- 
tially as an element into every form of civil gov- 
ernment, it is worse than idle to affirm that it is 
wrong ijer se. But, more than this, it has the 
sanction of Jehovah; for government is expressly 
declared in holy Scripture to be his ordinance." 
. . . "How imbecile, then, is it to say of the 
system of slavery that it is wrong in the abstract, 
wrong in principle ! How little do men consider 
what they affirm in this declaration!" (Page 56.) 
As you have discussed these topics more or less 
nearly all through your book, I have deemed it 
more convenient to present them together, as they 
contain the strength of your main positions in your 
own language. You have very adroitly assumed, 
as the cUmax of your definitions, statements and 
arguments that "Jehovah sanctions" the system 
of American slavery, for the support of which your 
book was written. As I intend to discuss those 
vital points of the system separately, and as the 
Divine sanction will come up in the proper place, I 
only make this passing remark here and turn to 
the main question — What is the true charade^' of 
the principle and system of slavery'^ 

And, 1. Your definitions, supported as they are 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 37 

by all your explanations and arguments, are radi- 
cally defective, and, as far as they apply to the 
principle and system of American slavery, are only 
accidents, or at best attributes of that system. 
The liberty you have taken with language, and 
the use made of terms, would establish African 
slavery, both in the abstract and the concrete, un- 
der every form of government where the relation 
of "master and servant" and "control by the will 
of another" exist. But they exist in some form 
or other in every state in this repubhc; con- 
sequently, according to your logic, African slav- 
ery exists or may exist in every state in this 
Union 1 This contradicts facts, and demonstrates 
that you have failed to give a correct expo- 
sition of the system of American slavery. To 
make this more plain if possible: you claim 
that the principle of slavery is "an essential 
element in all human governments;" if you in- 
clude the system of American slavery, then 
that system can exist wherever human govern- 
ments exist, and, of course, can exist in all the 
states in this nation; but there are numerous hu- 
man governments where it can not exist, being ex- 
pressly excluded by law, as is the case in all our 
free states. But if you do not include that sys- 
tem your learned and labored exposition entirely 



88 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

fails to bring out, in its own proper character, that 
system for the support of which your book was 
written. 

But, 2. Every honest man must protest against 
your assumptions in regard to the use of terms 
and language; and as you are an advocate of 
"calling things by their right names," by }^our 
authority, and in justice to truth, it must be said 
you have, doubtless inadvertently, not only misap- 
phed terms, but perverted and used them in a 
sense unauthorized by any standard authors, or con- 
ventional arrangements of civilized society. The 
only apology I can fmd for you personally, is the 
imperious demands of the system you attempt to 
support. According to your lucid exposition, 
slavery in the abstract is "control by the will of 
another," and in the concrete is a "master con- 
trolling by his own will, and a slave controlled or 
serving either by subjection or submission;" and 
in every form of human government where this 
authority and subordination exists there " is a sys- 
tem of practical slavery!" Now, if this is a cor- 
rect and authorized use of terms, we are war- 
ranted in substituting, in all human governments, 
the term master — that is, slave-owner; for I 
shall show presently, beyond controversy, that 
ownershiiJ is inseparable from slaver?/ — in place of 
the name or office of those authorized to control or 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 39 

govern, and slave in place of those who are 
subordinate, controlled or governed, and it will 
make good sense, and be sustained by the standard 
authorities of the land. For example, you say 
''the stcde'^^ — that is, each state in this republic — 
"is a master'' — slave-owner — and of course each 
citizen is a slave! On the same principle the Gov- 
ernment of the United States is the great mas- 
ter — slave-oivner — and the whole mass of citizens 
are slaves; and as each citizen is under the "con- 
trol" or government of the great "master'' — slave- 
oivner— the United States, and the smaller "mas- 
ter " — slave-owner — his own state, instead of being 
an honor aUe and free citizen of this great Ameri- 
can republic — whose name is revered on every 
continent and whose flag is honored on Q\Qvy sea — 
he is of necessity a double "slavey" controlled by 
two "masters" — slave-otuners ! ! Again, try this 
principle on the Government of the United States, 
the state governments, and the citizens. No man 
of intelhgence will peril his reputation by denying 
that these governments, throughout their legisla- 
tive, judicial, and executive departments, recognize 
distinctly authority in one class of men to "con- 
trol," and subordination in the others "to be con- 
trolled" or governed; and that the same men who 
are at one time "controlled," at another time "con- 
trol; and those who governed or controlled at one 



40 BE VIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

time are at another time subordinate. Tlien, go 
through those instruments — the charter of Ameri- 
can freedom — and substitute master — slave-oivii- 
er — where authority to control is found, and slaoe, 
or property, where being controlled or subordination 
to government is imphed, and not only would it 
not be pure English or common-sense, but all bar- 
barism could not furnish a parallel for jargon and 
nonsense ! But look at this a little further. In 
the domestic relations parents are masters — 
slave-oiuncrs — and the children slaves — marketahle 
property! In the business of the country all em- 
ployers are masters — slave-owners — and every one 
employed is a slave. Hence, to infuse the ^^prin- 
ciples of slavery'' mto all governments as an "es- 
sential and necessary element," you misapply terms, 
pervert language, contradict facts, and involve 
yourself m gross absurdity. Surely nothing less 
than the potency of cold-hearted error, that is un- 
moved by any thing its victims may suffer in its 
defense, could have betrayed one of your abilities 
into such a hazardous experiment. I charge, 
however, all your difficulties in defending it upon 
the system. 

Having shown that your definition and learned 
exposition of slavery have entirely failed to reach 
the essential character of American slavery, and, 
also, that you could only reach the conclusions at 



AND PllACTICE OF SLAVERY. 41 

which you aimed by a process which will do no 
honor either to its author or the system he defends, 
I might here dismiss this point; but it is of suffi- 
cient importance to justify some further remarks, 
as in your plan it is the foundation of all your con- 
clusions. Hence, 3. A most serious objection to 
your exposition of slavery is its necessary tend- 
ency — not to say design — to diminish self-respect, 
vitiate and degrade the pubhc taste, mind, and 
morals of the community — the whole nation. A 
system of slavery, the term slave, and a state of 
slavery are, in the language of all civilized coun- 
tries, inseparably associated with the ideas of menl- 
diti/, dishonorahle, degradation, and kindred ideas 
in relation to the enslaved. No man of intelli- 
gence will, for a moment, question this fact. In 
our own country it is found in the literature, legis- 
lation, politics, business, and social order of the 
whole country; and no where is the fact more 
clearly demonstrated than in the south. Your 
"Philosophy and Practice of Slavery " affords un- 
questionable testimony that the idea of slave and 
menial degradation are ahsolutely inseparable. 

It is no easy task to dispose of these facts with- 
out implicating your "philosophy" in a design to 
corrupt the public mind by familiarizing it with the 
idea that the system of African slavery is right, 
since all subordinates, which include the whole 



42 KEVIEW OF THE P 11 i L U H U P 11 Y 

community, are in some form or other a species of 
slaves! With the American idea of slavery it is 
admitted by all, and none have contended for 
it more stoutly than yourself, that the slave, un- 
der the system, can not be elevated to social and 
political equality with freemen; how, then, can the 
inference be resisted that your "philosophy of 
slavery" intends to brin^ down the standard of 
self-respect and pubhc feeling to "coincide" with 
the system of slavery ? With the present and in- 
creasing public feeling against the system, it can 
no longer exist in peace, if it can be perpetuated 
for any great length of time at all; but, according 
to your "philosophy," it is a divine institution, to 
exist perpetually ; the public mind, therefore, must 
be brought doivn to harmonize with the system, as 
the system can not possibly be brought up to har- 
monize with public feeling and the principle of 
Christian civilization. Then, according to the prin- 
ciples and language of your philosophy, every sub- 
ordinate in the whole land, in every relation in life, 
must be taught and made to know — for you have 
said "the master should not bear the sword in 
vain" — that he is a species of slave, and in the 
same degree is the subject of menial degradation; 
and that every one having authority to govern is 
a master — slave-onmer — and is ruling or governing 
a species of degraded slaves! Hence, the Ian- 



AND PKACT ICE OF SLAVERY. 43 

guage and literature of the land must be corrupted 
and the fountains of legislative, political, social, and 
domestic order — to say nothing of the purity of 
the Gospel and the Church — must be foisoned 
with the heresy of your philosophy for the accom- 
modation and defense of the system of American 
slavery! If all this is not intended, and that a 
species of slavery exists " under all forms of human 
government," then this part of your learned labors 
has no more relevancy to American slaver}^ than 
if your lectures had been delivered on the g:eo«;ra- 
phy of the moon! 

4. Before dismissing this part of the subject, I 
shall point out the source of your errors and the 
ground on which both your philosophy and logic 
have so strangely blundered. 

First. You maintain 'Hhat every government 
adapted to fallen beings" . . . "is necessarily 
a combination of these two opposite elements — the 
principle of freedom and the principle of slavery." 
(Page 48.) Just and wise governments are adapted 
to men as fallen beings; of course they are included 
in your proposition. Such governments are invested 
with authority to "control," and, according to your 
philosophy, so far as they control the governed, they 
are the ^^opiiosite of freedom^^ and contain the 
principle of slavery; but as they do not control 
the governed in every thing, so far they are the 



44 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

'^opposite of slaver y^^ and contain the |;rm6v};/6 of 
freedom. And as slavery is "control by the will 
of another," so far as the citizen is "controlled" by 
government he is a slave^ and wherein he is not so 
"controlled" he is ^freeman! If this were the 
fact in regard to government, the unnatural and 
constantly active "friction" would long since have 
worn out alike the governments and the governed ; 
and that such results have never followed just and 
wise governments is no ordinary proof that the 
philosophy which teaches such doctrine is radically 
defective. 1. Just human governments are the 
embodiment, in acknowledged forms, of the will of 
the governed; in establishing which they exercise 
entire self-control 2. In these forms of govern- 
ment the people, who are the governed, agree, for 
the general good of the whole, to do certain 
things and not to do certain other things. 3. 
They are precisely as free in the use of self- 
control in what they agree not to do, as they are 
in what they agree to do, and in not doing what 
they agree to abstain from, as in doing what they 
engage to perform. 4. They have the same power 
of self-control to dissolve the relation between the 
government and the governed that they had to 
create that relation. 5. So far, therefore, is 
such government from "embodying the principle 
of slavery" as an "opposite element to free- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 45 

J dom," and from being a "master" — slave- 
j owner- — to "govern by its own will/' in oppo- 
I sition to the self-control of the governed — 
j a community of slaves — that it is, to all intents 
I and purposes, the agent or servant of the 
j people, created to serve their will and to promote 
I their interests. So obvious are these facts, and 
potent the great principle they embody, that it 
has extorted from you — and most unfortunately, 
too, for your system — the concession of all I 
I claim, and before which your philosophy stands 
confounded. You say, "If government be, as 
it undoubtedly is, the agent of the people, 
and the people choose, they are certainly com- 
petent by this agent to free themselves from 
this institution" — slavery. (Page 13.) Now, 
Doctor, in this plain statement, which you can 
neither renounce nor explain away without stul- 
tifying yourself, we have the following facts fa- 
tal to your philosophy: (1.) Just government is 
the agent of the people. (2.) The people can use 
this agent as they choose in regard to their "insti- 
tution." (3.) Instead of this agent being the "mas- 
ter" — slave-oivner — it is "controlled by the will" 
of the people, so that if there is any slavery in 
just and wise governments they are the slaves and 
the people the masters, governing by their own 
will and self-control, under laws of their own 



46 KEVIEW OF THE rillLOSOPUY 

making. Hence, the assumption that just gov- 
ernments are '•^necessarily a combination of the 
opposite principle of freedom and the principle 
of slavery''' is false, contradictory, and absurd. 

Secondly. Your philosophy had an ulterior ob- 
ject in view, in this labored effort, to poison all 
governments with the principle of slavery; namely, 
to reach the conclusion, at last, that the system of 
American slavery is founded in the same phi- 
losophy of all other governments, human and 
divine. Now, 1. The inherent difference between 
the philosophy of just and wise governments and 
that of the systems of slavery is, that in the 
former the people — the governed — exercise the 
power of self-control in forming the government as 
their "agent" — their servant — and in conceding 
what they will abstain from doing for the ind)lic 
good; and in all other things not conceded to gov- 
ernment they are free in the use of the powers 
God has given them in the improvement of their 
nature and the promotion of their happiness. 2. 
What they concede is a mere fraction compared 
with what they retain and exercise without con- 
trol or restraint. Their concessions are mainly 
that they will infringe upon no one's rights, and 
concede to others what they claim for themselves; 
and to see that each member performs his con- 
cessions for the general good of the whole. 3. In 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 47 

all such governments, while they do not claim for 
themselves, neither do they allow any under their 
authority to claim, hold, or exercise the right of 
fro'perty in men; on the contrary, they distinguish 
humanity as a whole, and each human being in 
particular, from property, and essentially as the op- 
posite of property of every kind. The philosophy 
of the slave system — as I shall demonstrate in 
another place — is based on the principle of the 
rigM of lyroperty in the persons of human heings; 
consequent!}^, it reverses the whole principle, and 
not only denies to the governed — the slave — all 
self-control and excludes him unconditionally from 
all participancy in making or administering the 
laws and government by which he is controlled, 
but it recognizes him as proioerty^ and places him 
in the same relation to law that it does a chattel. 
The difference between the philosophy of just gov- 
ernments and that of the system of slavery is as 
wide as the poles. The one had its origin in the 
wisdom, goodness, and justice of God; the other 
in the depravity, cupidity, and wickedness of men. 
The one elevates, the other degrades humanity. 
The one leads to virtue and God, the other to 
vice and degradation. 

Thirdly. But, sk, these errors are based on 
others still more radical lying behind them. 1. 
You assume that the term slave is generic., and that 



48 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

under "every form of government" the different 
classes of subordinates, or servants, where "control 
by the will of another" is involved, are so many 
species belonging to the genus— slave— ov the sys- 
tem of slavery. On this assumption you call the 
state the "master" of the citizens, and of course 
they must be a species belonging to the genus 
slave; and also the heads of families are "mas- 
ters," and their households are species of slaves 
belonging to the same genus; and so of all other 
superiors— they are masters and the subordinates 
a species of slaves. 2. You strangely confound 
the terms slave and servant Referring to "the 
ancient systems of villenage in England, serfdom 
in Russia, peon of Mexico, and slavery in the 
United States," you say, "Each of these systems 
is pervaded by the generic principles or ideas 
which classify the whole as belonging to the same 
genus— ^y^i^m of slavery." (Page 40.) Here 
you distinctly make "slave," "slavery," "system 
of slavery," ^ genus; and of necessity the various 
classes or grades of servants must be species of 
s/am belonging to i\\2X genus. Again, "Nothing 
is more certain than this, that the Hebrew Bible — 
and the same is true of the EngUsh translation — 
speaks of servants, hired servants, and honcl serv- 
ants. The term servant is the generic form, and 
evidently means a person who is controlled by the 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 49 

will of another." (Page 142.) In this case, be- 
yond doubt, you make servant, or servitude, the ge- 
nus; in the other, slave, or slavery. It is evident, 
therefore, that you consider the terms slave and 
servant convertible — meaning one and the same 
thing, or there is a palpable contradiction. In thus 
confounding terms you pervert and apply them con- 
trary to their acknowledged meaning, use, and ap- 
I plication in all civilized countries, and especially 
in the holy Scriptures, which must be the authori- 
tative standard where moral principle and human 
rights are as deeply involved as they are in this 
case. A correct view of the plain philosophical 
and practical facts will dispel the confusion and 
darkness which your philosophy has thrown around 
this otherwise plain question. (1.) All slaves are 
servants, but all servants are not slaves. This fact 
is recognized in the language and carried out in 
the practice of all civihzed people on earthy and 
recognized in the Bible with a clearness that defies 
successful contradiction. (2.) For slavery, whether 
considered metaphorically or literally, in all coun- 
tries and languages, implies a menial state of pri- 
vation and degradation; while servant is used in 
the holy Scriptures, and in common language, and 
referring to the various relations and operations of 
civilized hfe, in cases without number, where it 
would not only be absurd to use tlie terai slave, 



50 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

but would be absolutely Mse. For example, in our 
own country — and the same is true of others — it 
is the acknowledged form of our language, so un- 
derstood and universally used throughout the na- 
tion, that, as a matter of fact, the chief officers of 
the state and of the nation are the servants of 
the people ; being subordinates and " controlled by 
the will" of their constituents, the constitutions 
and laws of the land. But, so far is this state of 
servitude — subordination to the popular will, the 
constitutions and laws of the country — from being 
one of menial degradation and dishonor, as is abso- 
lutely the fact in the case of the dave^ that it is a 
position of the highest civil distinction and honor 
that freemen can enjoy; and to hecome a servant 
in this sense is the honorable aspiration of men of 
the brightest talents in the nation. The fact is 
perfectly obvious that the term servant, and the re- 
lation it implies from the degraded slave to the 
President of the United States, is " pervaded with 
the generic element," namely, subordination, and 
consequently "control" by owners, masters, super- i 
intendents, governors, laws, and constitutions; 
while each class of subordinates has its own pecu- j 
liar relation to some one or more of those sources 'j 
of authority to control, which relation constitutes j 
it a species belonging to the genus— ^;ekv Am. \ 
Hence, that servant, being a universal term to indi 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 51 

cate subordination, is a genus; and slave, which 
is limited to a particular class of subordinates, is a 
species belonging to the genus servant, is unques- 
tionable. If it were not the fact, we could trans- 
pose the proposition and affirm in truth that cdl 
servants are slaves, but that all slaves are not serv- 
ants. This would be positively false, while the 
contraiy is literally true. Having demonstrated 
that men may be subordinates — servants, without a 
particle of the ^'principle of slavery" entering into 
that relation, I shall in my next present the specific 
character of slavery as it exists mfact. 

Yours, respectfully, 

J. H. P. 



REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 



LETTER III. 

THE TRUE DEFINITION AND CHARACTER 
OF SLAVERY. 

The true definition of slavery— American slavery — The right of 
property in the persons of men— The defense contradicts itself, un- 
less it can separat-e the man from the slave — The latter is impossible, 
the former is palpable — The history of slavery sustains the truth of 
our definition — Any other view makes slaveholders real barbari- 
ans—" The philosophy and practice of slavery " absolutely irrecon- 
cilable with the facts in the case. 

Rev. W. a. Smith, D. D., — Having fully shown, 
if not to your satisfaction, doubtless to the satis- 
faction of others more favorably situated to form 
an impartial judgment in the case, that your ex- 
position of slavery, both in the "abstract" and the 
"concrete," is incurably defective; and that your 
assumption, that 'Hhe jmnciple of slavery is an 
essential and necessary element in all human gov- 
ernment, is positively false ; and that your position, 
that as far as men are "controlled" by govern- 
ment they are "slaves," and, in other respects, 
they are freemen, is radically erroneous; and that 
you have entirely failed to present the system of 
American slavery in its proper light, I now pro- 
ceed to exhibit that system in its true character 
as it exists, in fact, in this republic. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 53 

Whatj then, is the principle — the life-giving and 
sustaining princij^le — of slavery proper in general, 
and of the system of American slavery in par- 
ticular? The true answer will dispel the awe, 
mystery, and claim to the special providence of 
God in its support, which your philosophy has 
thrown around it, and will reveal it in a character 
far less attractive than that in which you have 
labored to dress it for public exhibition. The an- 
swer is, " The vast mine of principle— pure, essen- 
tial truth — that underlies" the system of slavery 
in general, and the American system in particular, 
is that of the jjrinciple or idea of property, money, 
wealth — with its "correlatives," honor, power, and 
gratification, which money procures — in the person 
OF HiBiAN BEINGS. This is the '' ahstrad''' princi- 
ple of slavery — American slavery. Slavery in the 
"concrete," is that system estabhshed and in 
practical operation in a community or state by cus- 
tom or code of laws, which gives men the right of 
froiderty in the persons — soul and body — of hu- 
man beings; and which places them, to all intents 
and purposes, under the laivs of property ^ and that 
gives their owner all the power of law over their 
persons as his property or money that it does over 
any other species of property having a money 
value. I shall not be careful to discuss these 
points — the principle and the practice of slavery — 



54 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

separately, for, in fact, they are generally insepa- 
rable. If this definition and statement of the sys- 
tem of slavery be correct, it is clearly demonstra- 
ble that your presentation of the subject is entirely 
erroneous; and that such is the fact I proceed to 
show. 

First I need not quote any particular law of 
the south to prove that the system authorizes the 
holding of human beings as propertyj for the en- 
tire slave code rests on the principle that the 
master, as owner, has a legal and indefeasible right 
of property in the soul and body of the slave as a 
"chattel, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, in 
the hands of his owner." It is by virtue of this 
7iglit of property in the person of the slave that 
the master can buy, sell, mortgage, give, or gamble 
away the persons of men, women, and children; 
and the slave system of laws authorize and pro- 
tect him in all this, precisely as they do in deaUng 
in, and disposing of, any other kind of property — 
as mules and horses! These are facts of public 
notoriety, spread out on the statute-books, and 
earned out in the common practice, of all the 
slaveholding states in the Union. 

Secondly. You have distinctly conceded this 
point. You say, "And it is certain that the tenth 
article of this constitution — the decalogue — pro- 
vides to protect the right of property in slaves." 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 55 

Again: "Thus we find that the Jewish constitution 
provided to protect the right of 2^roperti/ in the 
servants or slaves, in the generic sense;" . . . 
"Hebrews, in given circumstances, for a definite 
period; and . . . the neighboring heathen 
in imjjeUdtyy (Pages 142-3.) Further, "The 
duty of masters to their slaves, considered as ilieir 
money r (Page 284.) And that there might be 
no mistake in regard to this riglit of pro^jerty in 
slaves being perpetual, and to rebuke any who 
should have the temerity to differ from the dog- 
mas of your philosophy, you add: "Now, to as- 
sume that God provided in this constitution " — the 
decalogue — "to protect in all time to come (for it 
is allowed to embody immutable principles) a rela- 
tion" — master as owner, and slave as property — 
"whicli was, in itself, an iniquity^ is more than a 
mere absurdity — it is p7vfamty" (Page 139.) 
True, you have labored with commendable zeal in 
refuting Channing, Whewell, and others, when they 
say, "Slavery converts a person into a thing — a 
subject merely passive, without any of the recog- 
nized attributes of human nature;" . . . "he 
is divested of his moral nature," etc. (Page 146.) 
You have clearly shown the absurdity of these 
views, if taken literally; but most of your readers 
will think you have lost your time and labor in 
refuting what no one either believed or taught; 



56 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

namely, that a slave is literally changed into a 
"brute." But all this fails to touch the real ques- 
tion — is the moneij value of slavery its only princi- 
fie of being and lifel However, in coming into 
the neighborhood of this issue, your philosophy 
evidently became agitated, and has given us a 
singular specimen of contradiction and confusion; 
for, in opposition to the property principle of the 
slavery system, you say, "The right of property 
in man, as man, is no where taught in Scripture, 
although it distinctly recognizes the relation of 
master and slave. The right which the master has 
in the slave, according to the Scriptures, is not to 
the man^ but to so much of his time and labor as 
is consistent with his rights of humanity." (Page 
150.) That, in making God the author of a sys- 
tem of involuntary, perpetual slavery, under which 
the owner has, and by divine authority is, pro- 
tected in the right of property in slaves, and in 
attempting to defend this system against rational 
objections, you have in fact contradicted yourself, 
is obvious to even superficial observers. 

1. You affirm that God has provided, on "im- 
mutable principles," to "protect the right of prop- 
erty in slaves in perpetuity." But slaves are 
men ; therefore he has provided to protect the right 
of property perpetually in men. 2. You assert, 
which no doubt is the fact, that "the right of prop- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 57 

erty in man, as man, is no where taught in Scrip- 
ture." Then it follows beyond the power of eva- 
sion, either, (1.) The slave in whom his owner has, 
by divine appointment, a perpetual right of prop- 
erty, is not a man; or, (2.) That the slave, who is 
identically the man himself, can be separated from 
the man and be recognized in law, and in all other 
respects, as property, and be treated as such ; while 
the man can be separated from the slave and be 
recognized in law, and in all respects treated as a 
freeman; or, (3.) That your positions are not only 
absolutely irreconcilable, but in deadly hostility to 
each other! If it be true that God has author- 
ized — as you say in the Jewish constitution — and 
protects the right of property in slaves, it is not 
true that "the Scriptures no where teach" that 
doctrine; or, if it is the fact that the Scriptures 
no where teach such right, it "is more than a mere 
absurdity — it is profanity,^'' to assert, as your phi- 
losophy does, that God has ordained, authorized, 
and protects the right of property in slaves; for it 
is positively impossible to separate the slave from 
the man. You will not affirm the first, that the 
slave is not a man. It will be too humiliating to 
your philosophy, and too perilous to your reputa- 
tion as a Christian scholar and divine, to admit the 
coniradicUon in the third; consequently, there is 
no relief for your philosophy but to attempt to 



58 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

maintain the second — separate the man from the 
slave! Your philosophy appears to have had 
some "premonitory symptoms" of difficulties ahead, 
and to have taken some precautionary measures. 
Hence, you say, "The right which the master has 
in the slave, according to the Scriptures, is not to 
the man, but to so much of his time and labor as 
is consistent with his rights of humanity." This 
is a refinement — a mere "fiction" — which has long 
served the double purpose of concealing the real 
character of slavery, and of quieting the con- 
sciences of many who have serious scruples as to the 
morality of the system. The "Old Dominion" has 
long since acquired a historical notoriety for her doc- 
trine of "abstractions''' on other subjects, but this 
apphcation of it to the system of slavery is justly 
entitled to a new name, which, not unaptly, might 
be called an " abstraction abstracted from abstracr 
tionsT The supreme absurdity, that the slave 
can be separated from the man^ while both are one 
and indivisible, has to be demonstrated, or the 
truth of my position conceded, and slavery taken 
out of the record of the Scriptures, according to 
your own showing. But you, and all other pro- 
slavery advocates, have, up to this day, failed to 
give us the process — the modus operandi — of sep- 
arating the slave from the man, or the man from 
the slave. And, although I have a right to de- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 59 

mand the process, or that you should abandon the 
position, I will not embarrass a personal friend by 
pressing the latter, nor by requiring him to per- 
form an impossibility in the former. "The master 
has no right of property to the man, but to his 
time and lahorr " Time and labor," considered in 
reference to the agency of man, are relative terms. 
They have no alstrady separate^ or independent ex- 
istcnce apart from the man. They can not, by any 
possibility whatever, have an existence only in 
inseparable connection with man. The labor is the 
effect., and in this case the man is the cause; and 
it would not be more absurd to suppose an actu- 
ally-existing effect without any cause to produce 
it, than to suppose the existence of the labor of a 
man without the man to perform such labor. The 
right of property in labor already performed, and 
the time requisite to perform it, is an utter impos- 
sibility. Both are passed, and have no more being 
710'W than if they never had existed. Hence, the 
right of property in labor already performed is a 
right in that which has no existence, and which 
never can have a being hereafter. The right of 
property in the effects of, or what has been pro- 
duced by labor already performed is an entirely dif- 
ferent matter. The merchant, the farmer, the me- 
chanic — every citizen has a right of property in 
that which labor performed has produced, while 



60 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

they have not now, and never had, the right of 
property in either the men, their time, or labor, 
who performed the work. The right of property 
in labor to be performed in the future^ unless it 
includes absolute looiver over the man who is to 
perform it so as to compel its performance, is the 
right of property in that which has not notv, and 
never may have an existence! This would be the 
right of property in a mere phantom; and if 
slavery had no other foundation the whole system 
would perish in an hour. Therefore, the modest 
"right of property in the time and labor of the 
slave," includes the absolute power of the owner over 
the whole 7nan — soul, body, and spirit — to compel wi- 
remunerated labor during the entire life of the man ! 
and yet the system and your philosophy have the 
effrontery to insult common-sense with the asser- 
tion that the "master has no right of property 
in the slave, as a man, but only in his time and 
labor;" which, by absolute necessity, includes the 
whole man as the slave ! ! I am surprised that a man 
of your intelligence would involve yourself in such 
absurdities. Put " so much of the time and labor of 
the slave as is consistent with his rights of human- 
ity," into the slave market without the slave himself, 
if this were possible, and propose to sell the right 
of property in them, to the exclusion of the per- 
son — the whole "humanity" — of the slave, and 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 61 

tell the purchaser — tell the world, this is the true 
character of the system of American slavery! 
Why, sir, eveiy slave-dealer in the land would 
cease to admire you as a philosopher, if he did 
not look upon you as a lunatic ! ! 

What are the facts of the case as exhibited in 
the practical operations of the system? You can 
scarcely look into a southern secular newspaper 
without being met by advertisements for the sale 
of slaves of almost every age, character, and sex. 
Do they propose to sell the "right of property" in 
the time and labor of slaves, to the exclusion of or 
apart from the identical 2^ er sons of the slaves ? Your 
honesty and good sense must answer at once in the 
negative. The labor is a contingency, the ma^i is 
a reality. The reality can exist without the con- 
tingency, but the contingency can never occur 
without the reality. As the slave labor can have 
no possible existence apart from the slave, and as 
the slave can not exist apart from the jnan, and as 
the man can not perform the labor without the 
physical^ moral, and intellectual elements of human- 
ity, slave labor can have existence only as it is in- 
separably connected with these essential elements 
of human nature, without which man would cease 
to be man. Consequently, the right of property 
can only be in the person of the slave as man, and 
a reality in possession, and because he is man and 



62 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

capable of performing man's labor; while the labor 
is a mere accident, and optional with owners 
whether they will exact it or put the slave — ''the 
man as man' — into the market and make their 
profits by the sale of his person — soul and body. 
The entire operation of the slave system is a prac- 
tical, public, authoritative refutation of the sickly — 
not to say contemptible — apology for slavery, in 
attempting to separate the right of projHrty in the 
time and lahor of the slave from the man — the 
entire humanity of the man himself! The slave 
s}^stem in this country, as a matter of fact spread 
out before the civilized world, places the slave — 
the man — with all that constitutes his humanity, 
under the laws of loroi^erty^ and compels him to 
perform all the functions of property. The man — 
his person — is bought, sold, bequeathed, paid on 
debts, executed for debts, and in every other way 
used as an article of commerce or trade at the will 
and for the benefit of his owner, precisely as is the 
horse or the mule ! ! In the light of these facts 
your strange position and that of your system can 
be accounted for only on the principle that imper- 
ceptibly you have been so far "controlled by the 
will of another" — your philosophy of slavery — that 
you have been betrayed into logical and philosoph- 
ical absurdities, which, under other circumstances, 
you would sedulously avoid, if not indeed heartily 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 63 

detest. Having demonstrated, from the philo- 
sophical necessity of the case, the impossibility of 
separating the time and laho7* from the man, from 
the slave laws, and the universal practice under 
those laws, and from your own positions — that 
"the decalogue provides for and protects the right 
of property in slaves — that the great central prin- 
ciple of the system of American slavery is the right 
of IJTOferty in man, including his whole humanity— 
his capacity, physical and mental, to labor as the 
visible, tangible reahty in possession, and his labor 
as a contingency — it is perfectly clear that the 
whole idea and principle of the system of slavery 
is resolved into that of iwo^erty, money, tvealth in 
THE PERSONS OF HmiAN BEINGS; and that it is this 
property and money value which sustains the whole 
system, and that gives it life, energy, practical 
power, and influence, and without tvhich it could 
not survive an hour. Now, this is either literally 
true or it is not true. You, and the entire pro- 
slavery school, have either to admit or deny its 
truth. To allow its correctness would be an entire 
abandonment of the false assumption that "the 
principle of slavery is an essential element in all 
governments;" and as you have affirmed, what is 
strictly true, that "the Scriptures no where teach 
the right of property in man," and as the impossi- 
bility of separating "time and labor" from the 

6 



64 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

man has been demonstrated, such an admission 
would take slavery wholly out of the record of the 
Scriptures, and totally ruin your whole scheme of 
^^ philosophy and practice of slavery," and leave 
you with no more right to claim the special prov- 
idence of God in regard to the system, than in any 
other money-making business, whether a righteous 
or wicked business. 

But as it would be unnatural for a kind parent 
to abandon his admired oifspring at any time, and 
especially in its tender age, before it had acquired 
strength to walk, I must suppose that you deny 
that the property and money value of the system of 
American slavery is its sole sustaining and life-giv- 
ing power and principle, without which it would 
immediately terminate. I regret that you over- 
looked or evaded this vital principle of the system 
throughout the whole course of your learned lec- 
tures on the subject of American slavery. Then 
you must maintain that the system of slavery, as 
organized and in practical operation in the slave- 
holding states in this republic, could retain its prac- 
tical organization and efficiency, succeed and pros- 
per, in the entire absence and total exclusion of the 
property and money value of the system. With 
the intelligent and unprejudiced the simple state- 
ment of the case will stand as its unanswerable 
refutation. But as various causes may operate to 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 65 

prevent an impartial judgment, a few remarks may 
be submitted, not to convince scholars or philoso- 
phers, but others less informed. 

First. The whole history of slavery in this coun- 
try testifies to the truth that the right of propeiiy 
in the person of the slave is the soul, life, and pother 
of the system. At the time the general govern- 
ment was formed all the states in the Union — or 
all except one or two — were slaveholding states; 
but in the northern states it was found that, in 
consequence of soil, climate, and the peculiarity of 
slave labor, the system was losing its money value, 
and that it would be more profitable to make in- 
vestments in other kinds of property. Slavery, 
therefore, precisely as it declined in its property 
and money value, was driven from the north. On 
the other hand, as the south discovered that slave 
labor was highly profitable, it increased the prop- 
erty and commercial value of the system, and its 
power has been and still is concentrating there. 
The same incontrovertible fact is being exemplified 
on the northern borders of those slaveholding 
states bordering on the free states. From various 
causes the system is losing its commercial value, 
and is becoming unproductive. The practical result 
is, it is melting away every day from those re- 
gions, and thousands of citizens are anxious to get 
rid of the system, without any reference to its 



66 KEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

moral character, but simply because they can make 
more money in other business than raising, buy- 
ing, selling, and working slaves. The potency of 
those historical facts is resistless. 

Secondly. It is an essential element in the laws 
of political economy that every system of busi- 
ness must produce more than it costs in the proc- 
ess of carrying it on, or it must terminate in hope- 
less bankruptcy. Its net profits are its very life 
and continued being, without which it must be a 
total failure. This is as literally true of the sys- 
tem of slavery as of any other business on earth. 
Had its cost annually exceeded its income, the 
states where it now flourishes and constitutes their 
wealth, would long since have been bankrupt and 
the system abolished by self-destruction. 

Thirdly. If the system of slavery can live, 
succeed, and prosper without its commercial char- 
acter — the ahsoliite right of property in the person 
of the slave — then the practical operations of 
slavery are unjust, cruel, and barbarous: unjust, 
in holding as property and in appropriating all the 
unremunerated labor of millions of human beings, 
for the benefit of their owners, when the system 
does not require it, and could live, prosper, and do 
all the good that is claimed for it, without this 
commercial value, and absolute property relation 
and character: cruel, in treating their persons as 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 67 

property, and in extorting this labor at the sacri- 
fice of the comfort, honor, domestic relations, and 
happiness, and all the rights of humanity, in the 
case of the unpaid laborers, while there is no pos- 
sible necessity for this oppression, if the right of 
property in the person of the slave is not the es- 
sential life of the system: barbarous, in shutting 
out from the minds of the enslaved the light of 
education, science, and literature, and withholding 
the effective means of Christian civilization from 
millions of immortal beings, as the only means of 
exacting from them the unrequited labor of slaves, 
for the sole gTatification and benefit of their own- 
ers — ^when the system requires no such privations 
and sacrifices, if its commercial value is not its 
only life. If it be true that the soul and life of 
the system is not its property and money value, I 
turn your attention to the ingenuous and ener- 
getic organization, and the powerful and perpetual 
working of the system, with all its tears, sweat, 
and blood ; with all its grief and anguish ; with all 
its ravages in the domestic relations which God has 
ordained ; with all the revolting scenes of the pub- 
lic slave-market, where husbands, wives, parents, 
children, and relatives are all torn asunder, and 
sold to the highest bidder, and all for the purpose 
of developing, possessing, and enjoying the prop- 
erty and money value of the system — and ask 



68 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

you, as a philanthropist, a Christian, a philosopher, 
what becomes of the peculiarly high degree of civ- 
ilization and refinement that you claim for the sup- 
porters of the slave system? The whole system, 
in its premises, and its practical working in the 
world with those who maintain it, assume a char- 
acter of revolting barbarism, if its money A^alue is 
not absolutely essential to its very being!! 

In closing this letter I ask your special attention 
to two points: Fird. The irreconcilable difference 
between our definitions and exposition of the sys- 
tem of slavery. You make the "principle of 
slavery an essential element in all governments, 
and without it government is no government at 
all." I have clearly shown that it is a mere con- 
tingency of government, that may or may not 
exist just as the legislative power determine, as is 
fully demonstrated in our own repubhc — some of 
the states totally excluding it, others retaining, or 
rather introducing and sustaining it under their 
governments. You define slavery, in its practical 
character, to consist in " the relation of master and 
slave," and "control by the will of another;" that 
is, the master controlling the slave by his own 
will. I have demonstrated that the princij^le of 
slavery is the right of iJro]perty in the person, soul, 
body, and spirit, of the slave, and that the author- 
ity of the master to "control" him as a slave is 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 69 

founded, not on the principle that slavery is "an 
essential element in all governments," but alone 
in the right of property given him by special law 
in the person of the slave. You have attempted 
to sustain your positions by a mass of metaphys- 
ical and philosophical speculations: I have sus- 
tained mine by your own concessions, and by facts 
which defy evasion or successful contradiction. 
Second. The distinction between slave as a species 
and servant as a ^eniis is demonstrable. The 
power of the master to control the slave by his 
own will is based alone on his right of property 
in the person of the slave; divest him of that 
right and he has no authority to control him as a 
slave, nor in any other sense ; while the authority 
to control other servants, rests wholly on other 
grounds than that of the ?i^ht of property in the 
person of the servant or subordinate. Children 
may be considered as a species belonging to the 
genus servant, but the right to control them is 
based on paternal relations and the laws of God. 
Apprentices are a species belonging to the same 
genus, and as such are " controlled by the will of 
another;" but the right to control them rests on 
mutual agreement and reciprocal interest, and not 
in the right of property in their persons as in the 
case of slaves. So clerks, government officers, 
and employes of every class. Although they are 



70 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

subordinates and controlled by others, in no in- 
stance is this control based on the right of prop- 
erty in their persons^ while that right is the sole 
ground of control under the system of slavery. 
Hoping soon to resume this subject, I remain, 

yours, 

J. H. P. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 71 



LETTER IV. 

SUBORDINATES UNDER JUST GOVERNMENTS 
ARE NOT SLAVES. 

Tlie falsity of the philosopliy of slavery demonstrated by the facts in 
the general government of the United States — And the state gov- 
ernments — Particularly that of the slaveholding states refutes the 
*' philosophy " — God has excluded slavery from all the relations he 
has ordained, and the governments he has formed, for human so- 
ciety — Under just governments subordinates are parties in forming 
their relations — The system of slavery allows no such right — Just 
governments protect the reciprocal rights of subordinates and su- 
periors — Slavery provides no such protection, but degrades the slave 
to a level with the beast — Just governments elevate their sub- 
jects — The system of slavery depresses and ruins its victims. 

Rev. Dr. W. A. Smith, — As promised, I re- 
sume the question at issue between us. And as 
your third lecture — "objections considered" — con- 
tains nothing bearing on the subject now before 
us — the true character of American slavery — -and 
as I do not deem it necessary to defend Dr. Way- 
land, whom you mainly attack, I shall pass it with- 
out any particular notice here and pursue the 
main question. Now, sir, in view of the facts al- 
ready presented, you will not dare to affirm that 
the system of slavery could exist in this country 
if the laws did not recognize the slave, to all in- 



72 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

tents and purposes, as property in the hands of his 
owner. The man who would make the assertion 
could only be the object of pity or contempt. 
With this fact so fully developed that, in spite of 
the mysteries of your philosophy, the most ordi- 
nary mind can not fail to see it and fully to feel 
its force, I ask your attention while I demonstrate, 
in the light of facts equally clear, the blindness 
and perversity of your philosophy on this subject, 
and consequently the impotency of the whole foun- 
dation of your magnificent temple of perpetual in- 
voluntary slavery. 

You tell us "the true philosophical definition of 
the principle [of slavery] is control ly the ivill of 
another, with its correlative — subjection, or submis- 
sion — impHed." . . . "The whole of the ab- 
stract idea of the system of slavery is to be found 
in the terms master and slave in correlation; and 
submission and siibjection to control hy the will of 
another.'' (Page 45.) You say this principle of 
slavery is "an essential element in every form of 
human government;" and that "no government 
can be appropriate to human beings" . . 
"that does not embody this generic element" of 
slavery. (Page 47.) And, "a government that 
did not embody the prindple of slavery would be 
no government at all." (Page 48.) Still further, 
"God has rendered the blessing of civil freedom 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 73 

inseparable from the presence and operation of the 
principle of slavery." (Page 50.) The above, 
which is not a tithe of what you say to the same 
efiect, can not be misunderstood in regard to the 
following points: 1. Control by the will of another, 
with its correlatives, master and slave, with sub- 
mission or subjection on the part of the slave im- 
plied, embodies the whole principle of slavery; and 
that slavery in the ''concrete''' is this principle, 
with its correlatives implied, carried out in practice. 
2. Any government containing this element em- 
bodies the principle of slavery, and "without it 
would be no government at all." 3. But all gov- 
ernments embody this principle as an "essential 
and necessary element, without which they would 
not be governments." 4. Therefore, slavery, and 
of course the system of slavery as it exists in the 
south, is based on the true philosophy of govern- 
ment and the essential constitution of man and of 
human society. I am sure that your doctrines un- 
der this head have neither been misunderstood nor 
misstated; this is demonstrable by supposing the 
contrary of the above propositions and conclusion ; 
and now. Doctor, precisely on this ground the 
whole strength of your philosophy fails you, not 
only because it is not sustained by facts, but be- 
cause unquestionable facts refute your whole phi- 
losophical scheme on this subject. I have shown 



74 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

already, beyond the power of your logic to refute 
or evade, or of your moral courage to deny, that 
"control by the will of another, with its correla- 
tives," is a contingency — a mere accident of slav- 
ery ; and that the true vital principle of slavery 
lies back of control by the will of another, and is 
based on the right of froj^crty which the system 
gives the master in the loerson — soul, body, and 
spii-it — of the slave; and that it is this right of 
property in the premises that invests the master — 
owner, with authority to control the slave by his 
own will; and that without this right of property 
such control — compelling involuntary, perpetual, 
unpaid labor, such as the slave is subjected to in 
the south — would be deemed, throughout the civ- 
ilized world, an outrage against justice and hu- 
manity deserving universal execration and the 
most exemplary punishment the laws could inflict. 
I am fully aware that this fact, that slavery is 
based alone upon the right of property in the per- 
son of the slave, may greatly trouble you, because 
it must prove fatal to your whole theory; and, 
however I may sympathize with you as a friend, I 
shall bring your philosophy to the light, and ana- 
lyze it in the Hice of the flict, though it should not 
survive^ the operation. "Better one suffer than 
many!'^ 1. The system of slavery is based on 
the r'ujht of property, which the laws give the mas- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 75 

ter in the person of the slave^ and without such legal 
right he would have no authority to own, hold, or 
control the slave as a slave. 2. That govern- 
ment, whether human or divine, which does not 
invest the government or governor, or by whatever 
name either may be called, with the legal right of 
property in the person of the governed, by what- 
soever name they may be designated, nor place 
such governed or subordinates under the laws as 
property or chattels, does not contain one particle 
of the element or principle of slavery. 3. But no 
government founded in the principles of justice, 
regarding the rights of man, and approved of God, 
invests the government or governor with the right 
of property in the governed, authorizing such sub- 
ordinates to be placed under the laws of property, 
and to be treated as chattels in the hands of their 
owners. Therefore, 4. The true philosophy of 
government, the rights of man, and the genius 
of human society utterly exclude the elements 
and principles of slavery. You may object that 
"in this statement I beg the question as to the 
character o^ just government f I, however, will in 
due time evince the truth of the position, if not 
to your satisfaction, yet beyond the power of your 
philosophy to resist or of your logic to refute. 
You say, "Government must place its subjects un- 
der the operation of the principle of slavery in 



76 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

some things, the more effectually to secure their 
practical freedom in other things. And the citi- 
zen who may be determined not to submit to this 
order of things, and shall persist to do, from the 
action of a depraved will, what the state — his mas- 
ier — says he shall not do, will, sooner or later, find 
himself reduced to a condition of most abject 
slavery, within the walls of a public prison." 
(Page 50.) The punishment of offenders against 
the just authority of the state is not the question 
now before us ; nor am I here discussing the gov- 
ernment suited to minors, but the philosophy or 
principle of government in general, and its true 
relation to the system of slavery in particular. 
The utter fallacy — indeed absurdity — of your as- 
sumption that governments "necessarily" embody 
the "antagonistic" principles of freedom, "self- 
control," and slavery — "control by the will of an- 
other" — has been clearly shown; and, also, that 
the subjects of just governments are as free in 
conceding what they ivill do, and what they will 
not do, for the good of the whole, as they are in 
reserving to themselves the full power of self-con- 
trol in what they have not conceded to govern- 
ment; and that, in your language, "government 
is the agent of the people," controlled in the prem- 
ises hy their will; consequently, "that all govern- 
ments derive their just powers from the will of 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 77 

THE GOVERNED. Notwithstanding the clearness with 
which all this has been evinced, I can afford to 
waive it for the present, and to give your philoso- 
phy all that it can in reason claim, till I test its 
truthfulness by the standard of facts. I will ad- 
mit what you claim, with all the force that truth 
will allow, that the "state is our master," "con- 
trolling" the citizens "by the will of another;" 
and to place this question out of the reach of mis- 
conception, and so that every one can judge, will 
take the government of the United States for an 
example. I shall not be particular in defining 
this "great master'''' — slave-owner — the general 
government, other than to give it the broadest 
application and greatest force. In this sense it 
includes the Constitution of the United States 
and the laws of Congress ; the President, his cab- 
inet, and all the federal officers throughout the re- 
public, as the executives of the will of the gov- 
ernment. And now, sir — however its provisions 
and object may have been, or may yet be, pros- 
tituted by the slavery power and influence — if 
your philosophy is sound, there certainly does exist 
some clear and unmistakable analogous points be- 
tween this great "master," and the slave '^ mas- 
ters,''' and the system of slavery in the south. 

But where can those points of agreement be 
found? The essential principles of the two sys- 



78 REVIEW OF TUB PHILOSOPHY 

terns are immutable opponents — eternal antago- 
nists! 1. The general government had its origin 
in the will of the people, and derives all its just 
powers from the consent of the governed. The 
system of slavery had its origin in the will of the 
masters, independent of the will or consent of the 
governed — the slaves. 2. The former is adminis- 
tered by the will of the governed — the people — 
through their representatives chosen by them- 
selves. The latter is administered — not unfre- 
quently in tears and blood in the case of its sub- 
jects — not only independent of, but in direct oppo- 
sition to, the will of the governed — the slaves, o. 
The general government is so fully under the con- 
trol of the governed — the people — that they can 
modify or change it when they please, or, if they 
choose, can abohsh it and substitute another in its 
place. Under the slave system the governed — the 
slaves — have no control oyer it or the manner of 
its administration, however cruel; no power to 
modify or abolish it, unless it should be by physical 
force in revolution and blood. 4. The general 
government was instituted — amono; other things — 
"to establish justice, promote the general welfare, 
and secure the blessings oUiherty to ourselves and 
our posterity." The system of slavery was estab- 
lished in open violation of the principles o^ justice, 
and with the express design to deprive miUions of 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 79 

our fellow-men — made by the same God, re- 
deemed by the same blood, and destined, if pious, 
to the same heaven with ourselves — of the "bless- 
ings of liberty ^^ and their unoffending "posterity" 
after them ! Where is the analogy? Where is the 
principle of slavery — the right of property in the 
person of man as a chattel — as an '^essential cle- 
menf in the general government of this republic, 
and "without which it would be no government at 
all?" Here are facts as irrefutable as that of your 
own existence, in the light of which your philoso- 
phy will scarcely escape the contempt of the intel- 
ligent as a gross caricature of the true philosophy 
of government and of the great charter of Ameri- 
can hberty and human rights. 

But, Rev. Doctor, your philosophy is too imper- 
tinent in its claims to be dismissed till further cor- 
rected. And, 1. As has been demonstrated, the 
slave system has its sole existence in the right of 
property in the person of the slave, vested in the 
master; but does the general government claim or 
possess the right of property in the persons of the 
governed — the citizens of this repubhc ? 2. The 
system of slavery places the persons of the slaves, 
to all intents and purposes, under the laws of prop- 
erty, and treats them in all respects as property, 
wholly for the use and benefit of their owners; 
but does the government of the United States 



80 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

place the governed under the laws of property and 
treat them as such, using them wholly for the ben- 
efit of the ''master'' — the government? 3. Under 
the slave system, by virtue of the ownership vested 
in the master, the slave, without the violation of 
any law, human or divine, can be — and frequently 
is — violently torn from the privileges and enjoy- 
ments of domestic relations, paid on debts, sold by 
the sheriff, bid off at auction, loaded with chains, 
thrust into loathsome prisons, and punished at the 
will of the owner, the master! Does the general 
government possess, claim, or exercise any such 
ownership, right of property, or any power what- 
ever to treat its unoffending citizens — the gov- 
erned — in the way slaves are treated? 

Now, sir, in the light of these facts your philos- 
ophy stands convicted as a miserable impostor, 
possessing no power, only to mislead and per- 
vert the minds of those who receive it as 
truth. The reasons are obvious; for the con- 
trast between the rude philosophy of slavery and 
the true philosophy of just governments is perfect. 
1. The former has its very existence in the 
right of property in the persons of human beings — 
the slaves. The Icdter not only does not possess 
any such rights but utterly repudiates, abhors, and 
detests such claims. The former recognizes the 



AND PRACTICE OP SLAVERY. 81 

persons of slaves as property, puts them wholly 
under the laws of property, treats and uses them 
as such. The latter recognizes the governed as 
citizens, and treats them as such in opposition to, 
and as distinguished from, all property of every 
kind. 3. The /on;z^r can Uve only by the destriic- 
Hon of the liberties of human beings — the en- 
slaved and their posterity after them; has estab- 
lished its whole system for that especial object — 
and whenever it shall cease this unnatural and un- 
holy work of destruction it will terminate its own 
existence. The latter can only live by maintain- 
ing the liberties of its citizens — the governed — 
against all slavery; and should it ever cease this 
glorious work of maintaining liberty against op- 
pression it will sink into the barbarism of slavery, 
provoke revolution, and incur the curse that now 
hangs over that system. " The jnindple of slav- 
ery is an essential element in all governments, and 
without it a government would be no government 
at all!" Why, sir, a more palpable falsity could 
scarcely be uttered. It is contradicted by univer- 
sal fact, and to attempt to dignify it with the name 
of sound philosophy is little less than an insult to 
common-sense. I might here safely leave your 
philosophy to its fate, which, doubtless, in the end 
will be any thing but flattering to its author; but, 



82 KEVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

as you have made it the foundation of your whole 
superstructure of slavery, I will not dismiss it 
without further exposing its fallacy. 

I turn your attention to fads belonging to other 
forms of government ; namely, that of the several 
states within this repubhc. Here, also, the facts 
are most fatal to your philosophy, and so clear 
that a brief notice is all that is necessary under 
this head. First Keeping steadily before the 
mind the fact that the system of slavery has its 
being alone in the right of property in the person 
of the enslaved, and in the destruction of their 
liberties, and of all domestic, social, and political 
rights^ I ask, where is the state in this Union 
whose government possesses, or claims a particle 
of such right, in the persons of its citizens who 
are the subjects of its governing power? Here, 
as in the case already examined, so far is the gov- 
ernment from possessing the least possible right 
of property in the perso?is of the governed, or a 
particle of power to put them as goods and chat- 
tels under the laws governing property, that these 
governments are framed, maintained, and admin- 
istered with direct reference to the opposite princi- 
ple—to distinguish the governed from all kinds 
of property, and to protect them in the acquisition 
and enjoyment of property as freemen, in opposi- 
tion to the degTadation of slavery. Secondly, 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 83 

There are no forms of human government which 
more clearly sustain these facts, and refute your 
philosophy, than those of the southern slaveholding 
states. Under those state governments, what is 
it that constitutes that vast difference in the con- 
dition of the free citizen and the degraded skwe'^ 
Surely it is not in mere color; for there are some 
black men there who are free, and some who are 
as white as you, or your reviewer, who are slaves. 
Nor can it be the difference alone in intellect, for 
not a few who are enslaved have more mind than 
their masters. What then makes this painful dif- 
ference? Before this question your philosophy is 
more dumb than the apostate prophet's ass; and 
if it should speak, and were allowed to utter the 
truth, like that abused beast it would rebuke— if 
not "the madness of the prophet"— the foUies 
and errors of a Christian philosopher, for prostitu- 
ting his noble powers in attempting to prop up 
and defend a sinking system of detestable tyr- 
anny, and human oppression, and injustice! 

I wiU not, however, increase your embarrass- 
ment by pressing an answer to this interrogatory, 
but wiU again turn your attention to facts; namely, 
that, in those states referred to, there are two 
classes or departments of organic and statute laws 
which, in fact, constitute ttvo systems of govern- 
ment One provides for and secures to a portion 



§4 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

of the population, generally called citizens, all the 
rights — domestic, social, civil, religious, and po- 
litical — of freemen in contradistinction from slaves 
and property of all descriptions. The other di- 
vests another portion of the population, termed 
slaves, of all those rights and privileges, and 
recognizes and treats them as jnoperiy, as con- 
tradistinguished from citizens and freemen. A 
single specimen is all that need be cited here. 
The laws of Louisiana provide: "A slave is one 
who is in the power of a master to whom he be- 
longs. The master may sell him, dispose of his 
person, his industry, and his labor; he can do 
nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing 
but what must belong to his master." {Civil 
Code^ Article 35.) " Slaves shall be deemed, sold, 
taken, reputed, and adjudged in law, to be chat- 
tels personal in the hands of their owners and 
possessors, and their executors, administrators, and 
assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes 
whatever." {/Stroud, page 23. Ulliott on Slav- 
ery, Vol. I, page IG.) 

In the one case, the system is based on the tr^ue 
jihilosopky that governments possess no particle of 
right of property in the persons of the governed, 
nor of power to place them under the laws of prop- 
erty, or to treat them in any respect as chattels. 
In the other, the entire system is founded in the 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 85 

false mid larharoiis philosophy of the right of 
property in the persons of the governed, and the 
power of placing them under the laws of property, 
and of treating human beings in every respect as 
chattels and articles of merchandise. The one is 
the eternal antipode of slavery, by excluding all 
right of property in the person of man. The 
other embodies the whole principle of slavery in 
asserting that right and treating men as chattels 
and beasts of burden!! If it were necessary 
further to demonstrate the falsity of your phi- 
losophy, we have only to expunge from southern 
laws those provisions which recognize the right of 
property in the persons of slaves, and to put them 
under that department of southern law which ex- 
cludes this element of property in man, and which 
protects the governed in all the rights of freemen. 
Such an operation would entirely exterminate 
slavery where it now exists. Hence, it is seen 
beyond the possibility of mistake, even in the 
light of southern governments and institutions 
themselves, that so far is it from being a fact that 
"the principle of slavery is an essential element in 
all governments," that all that department of gov- 
ernment in the slaveholding states, which refers 
to the free ivliite population, absolutely excludes 
the only principle on which slavery can exist — the 
right of property in the person of the governed; 



86 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

and that in the south the system of slavery de- 
pends wholly for its very existence on special legis- 
lative provisions, creating this right of property in 
the persons of men, women, and children as slaves, 
and placing them under the laws of property as 
goods and chattels. How is it, sir, or why did you 
overlook these stubborn facts in writing your book? 
Dear Doctor, in the face of these facts it can not 
escape your notice, if it has heretofore, that, in- 
stead of the principle and operation of slavery be- 
ing an essential element in all governments, even 
the south has practically and totally refuted your 
false philosophy in all her forms of government 
pertaining to her citizens; and that the system of 
slavery, as a "|;ec2<//ar msiltuiio7i^^ and an excep- 
tion to the character of just government, has been 
unnaturally forced upon the system of southern 
government by the cupidity and depravity of un- 
godly men. And to-day, in the eyes of the civ- 
ilized world, the institution of slavery stands out 
as a monstrous deformity of the southern system 
of otherwise sound and just government — a pu- 
trescent excrescence fastened upon a noble, manly, 
and otherwise healthy body; and, unless all his- 
tory is a fable, human nature ceases to be what it 
ah\^ys has been, and God forgets his justice, this 
vicious protuberance must be speedily removed by 
skillful hands from the ^o^/y-politic, or it will not 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 87 

only destroy health, but inevitably in the end re- 
sult in death ! It can scarcely fail to be a matter 
of mortification, that even the institutions of the 
south should be a standing refutation of the ^'Phi- 
losophy of Slavery " of one of her most gifted 
sons. But such is, and ever will be, the fact wliile 
southern laws and government recognize and pro- 
tect one class of the population as free diizens, be- 
cause no being on earth has a right of property in 
their persons, and at the same time recognize the 
right of property in the persons of another por- 
tion of the population, and in every respect treat 
and use them as " chattels personal in the hands 
of their owners!" I would here dismiss your phi- 
losophy, w^ere it not that you have not only made 
it the principal material in the foundation of the 
temple of slavery, but the basis of your moral 
science, on which the ^"text-books" in southern 
literature, if not the whole country, are hereafter 
to be formed. 

I shall here bring its claims to higher authority 
than the institutions and government of men; 
namely, the authority of God as expressed in 
those relations which he has estabhshed in human 
society expressing or implying government. 1. 
In referring to the origin of man and human gov- 
ernment, you say, "Now of these two created be- 
ings" — the first man and woman — "one was placed 



88 REVIEW OE THE PHILOSOPHY 

in direct and immediate subordination to the other." 
You quote Paul in proof. "I suffer not a woman 
to usurp authority over the man;" 1 Tim. ii, 12; 
"but they are commanded to be under obedience? 
as also saith the law." 1 Cor. xiv, 34. (Pages 
Go, 66.) To give your position all the strength 
possible, I quote the "law" referred to. God said 
to the woman, "And thy desire shall be to thy 
husband" — or, as the margin reads, subject to thy 
husband — "and he shall rule over thee." Gen. iii, 
16. Here is the commencement of government 
in human society in man's fallen state, as also the 
specific relations for the regulation of which this 
government was ordained of God. I readily ad- 
mit that it clearly expresses on the one hand 
authority to rule, and subordination on the other, 
and that it implies "control by the will of another, 
with submission or subjection;" but I deny that 
it contains the least particle of the element or prin- 
ciple of slavery in its composition or character. 
In proof you have only to be reminded that the 
fact has been fully demonstrated, that any system 
of government which does not recognize the right 
of property in the persons of the governed^ nor place 
them under the laws of property as chattels, does 
absolutely repudiate and positively exclude the en- 
tire principle of slavery, which has no other exist- 
ence than in such right, which gives it the power 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 89 

to use human beings as chattel property. Now, 
sir, unless you will affirm that, in this first form of 
human government, God gave the husband — with 
the authority to rule — the right of property in 
the subordinate — his wife — and also the power to 
place her as a chattel in his hands, under the laws 
of property, and use her as an article of merchan- 
dise, your philosophy, which asserts that the 
"principle of slavery is an essential element in all 
governments, and that without it a government 
would be no government at all," must stand utterly 
confounded before the truth of God. And should 
you so affirm, divine truth, which declares that the 
husband and wife "shall be one flesh," and that 
the husband "shall love, cherish, and treat his wife 
as himself," would involve you personally in the 
same absurdities with your blind philosophy! To 
assume or assert that this first form of government, 
ordained of Heaven for the benefit of man, con- 
tains the "presence and operation of the principle 
of slavery" would be Httle less than "profanity," 
and would be hterally false. 2. The relation which 
God has established between parent and children 
involves the same principles of authority and sub- 
ordination, and a correspondent government, as 
that of husband and wife; and, on examination, 
the results will be precisely the same. 

In this relation the authority of parents to con- 



0Q REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

trol and govern is unquestionable ; and the obliga- 
tion of children, while minors, to submit and obey 
is equally clear. Here, also, is a species o^ govern- 
ment established by the authority of God, in which 
there does not exist the least particle of the only 
principle on which slavery can have a being in the 
civilized world — the absolute legal right of property 
in the persons of the subordinates, and the author- 
ity and power to use them in the market as mer- 
chandise, as slaves are used wherever the system 
of property in human beings exists by custom or 
law. God has given parents no such right, author- 
ity, or power, in or over their children in this de- 
partment of human government. Here again 
your philosophy is a signal failure; and this case 
is too plain to requu-e further elucidation. 3. One 
other instance in which the Divine arrangement 
convicts your philosophy of fallacy and misrepre- 
sentation will be noticed. God has ordained a 
system of government for his Church and people 
in this world. The New Testament contains the 
authoritative constitution or organic law of that 
government; but it is left to the wisdom and pru- 
dence of godly men to make such rules and regu- 
lations, within the provisions of that constitution, 
as to adapt it to the people and circumstances 
where it is administered, and to render it an 
efficient government for the purposes for which it 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 91 

was instituted. It embodies distinctly the princi- 
ples of control and of submission; the chief offi- 
cers are offidalli) the superiors, and the member- 
ship the subordinates. But does it on that account 
contain — as your philosophy teaches — the "essen- 
tial principle of slavery?" Is either the govern- 
ment or the governors invested with the right of 
property in the persons of the governed — the mem- 
bership — and with authority to put them under 
the laws of property, and to supply the slave- 
market with them as articles of merchandise, and 
as "chattels in the hands of their owners?" To 
answer affirmatively would be folly, falsehood, and 
profanity! And, however unpleasant it may be 
to you, and fatal to your philosophy, I repeat that 
the system of slavery can not possibly exist, and 
must absolutely perish, without these vested rights 
of property in the slaves, and the power to use the 
persons of men, women, and children as property 
in the market. And unless God should revoke 
the principles of government he has established 
in reference to the relations of husband and wife, 
parents and children, and his own Church, these 
facts will remain an unanswerable and perpetual 
refutation of your false philosophy of the principle 
of slavery! I have already exposed the capital 
blunder in your whole scheme, in your defining 
slavery to be "controlled by the will of another. 



g2 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

with submission or subjection;" and have also 
shown that it is a mere accident of the system, 
and that the institution can have no existence 
apart from legal ownership on the part of the 
master, and the absolute right of property in the 
person of the slave. I now ask your attention to 
the practical diflerence, and the immense distance — 
the impassable ^w/f— between the laws of God and 
justice and the slave laws, and to the effective prin- 
ciple which constitutes that difference ; namely, the 
commercial value of the persons of the slaves under the 
slave system and the absolute i^ejection of that princi- 
ple by all just and righteous governments. 1. Un- 
der the latter, with the exception of minors, the sub- 
ordinates or governed are voluntary parties, and di- 
rectly or indirectly exercise their self-control in 
creating the relations out of which arise the obli- 
. gations of subordination and obedience which they 
assume. This fact has been fully evinced in re- 
gard to citizens, under the general and state gov- 
ernments, as subjects of governmental authority. 
The same fact will appear with equal clearness 
when considered in a more restricted sense; for 
the principle pervades every department of hu- 
man society in practical life. Take the case of 
agents, clerks, apprentices, and employes of every 
description, and in their various relations they are 
relatively subordinates, " co;?/ro/M by the will of 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 93 

others, and are bound to submit and obey" accord- 
ing to the character of their engagements with 
their relative superiors or employers. But in all 
these cases the subordinates are voluntary parties 
in assuming the obligations of submission and 
obedience. Under the system of slavery the sub- 
ordinates — the slaves — are not voluntary parties, 
and have no choice whatever in forming the rela- 
tions which require their submission and obedience. 
They have no self-control in the matter, and are 
forced into this position of perpetual servitude in 
opposition to their will and of every just and nat- 
ural feeling of humanity. 

The difierence of these cases is as wide as the 
poles; but what is the principle in the premises 
which constitutes this vast distinction? Precisely 
this: the latter system gives the master the 
right of property in the person — soul and body — 
of the slave, and recognizes him, "to all intents, 
constructions, and purposes whatever, as a chattel 
in the hands of the owner;" while the former 
system recognizes and protects its subordinates as 
men, in opposition to property of every descrip- 
tion; and although it gives the proprietor — not 
oumer — a limited right to the services of the sub- 
ordinates according to the terms of their relations, 
it gives him no more right of property in their 
persons than it does to the throne of God. Hence, 



g| ' BEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

the systems are immutably antagonistic — the one 
absohitely exckicling the idea and principle of prop- 
erty in the persons of men; the other having no 
existence but in such right of property, and the 
power to use their persons as articles of merchan- 
dise in the market. 2. Under righteous govern- 
ments, such as God approves, the governed have, 
as a general practical fact throughout the civilized 
world, the right and power — in all the business re- 
lations where service is required — to dissolve their 
relations, change their business, their obUgations, 
and circumstances, to improve their condition. 
Under the system of slavery the subordinates have 
no such right or power. He is allowed indeed, in 
some instances, the wonderful boon of choosing 
whose property he shall be, by selecting the man 
who may bid him off in the market I But even 
this is a luxury rarely enjoyed by this species of 
property ! ! He is doomed, under this heartless 
system, to hopeless servitude, with no prospect of 
change, unless it should be the change of owners, 
till he finds the grave, "where the wicked cease 
from troubling and the weary are at rest." Again, 
the inquiry comes up, what makes this startling 
difference between the governed under these two sys- 
tems of government? The answer is the same: one 
detests the principle of the right of property in 
the persons of men; the other has no other beinc; 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 95 

than in this unnatural right of property. 3. Just 
governments are founded upon the principle of 
reciprocity. The government in which this is not 
an effective principle is an unjust and detestable 
tyranny. This fact is full of interest, and of vital 
importance to human society, but I will only turn 
your attention now to a few examples for illustra- 
tion. In all the relations of authority, subordina- 
tion, submission, and obedience, referred to above 
and directly or indirectly ordained by the Al- 
mighty, the presence and operation of this princi- 
ple of reciprocity is palpable. Agents, clerks, etc., 
while subordinates and serving under the "control 
of the will of others," according to the expressed 
or implied terms of their relations, are receivmg 
compensation, by which, in time, they may become 
masters in business, controUing by their own will 
their business and subordinates. The apprentice, 
while submitting to control by the will of another, 
is forming business habits and acquiring a knowl- 
edge of the mysteries of his art, by which he may 
rise to the highest position of respectability and 
usefulness in society. And so with subordinates 
in general under righteous governments. Men in 
the highest circles of honorable and virtuous life 
have been subordinates, and subject to control by 
the will of others; and instances are not wanting 
of those who were subordinates, controlled by the 

9 



0Q REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

will of another, ascending from that position 
through the various distinctions of active life to 
the dignity and power of the President of this 
great republic. Your insinuation, that because 
subordinates are sometimes pressed by circum- 
stances they can not control into very undesirable 
situations, and that because there are poor persons 
where slavery is excluded by law, therefore per- 
petual, involuntary slavery is a very fine thing, is 
wholly undeserving of any formal notice. 

The system of slavery utterly repudiates the 
principle of reciprocity, and compels the slave, at 
the sacrifice of knowledge, honor, domestic rela- 
tions, and the most sacred affections which God has 
planted in the human heart, to minister to the pas- 
sions, appetites, and avaiice of his owner. The 
one toils unpaid, in the very dregs of poverty and 
degradation, till the grave closes over him and he 
ceases to sufier, labor, and live, that the other may 
live at ease, grow rich, acquire honors, and lux- 
uriate through life on the bitter earnings of his 
human property!! Why this painful difference 
between men of the same origin — the infidel sjyec- 
ulations of mme doctors of divinity to the con- 
tra n/ notwit/istamliiifji? — I say the same origin, 
redeemed by the same blood, living on the same 
soil, breathing the same atmosphere, and warmed 
by the same sun— one class ascending from a 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 97 

state of subordination and control by the will of 
another, to the highest dignities in refined and 
civilized society; and the other class, many of 
them with equal original intellect with their own- 
ers, descending in successive generations to the 
grave in poverty and ignorance, with no other dis- 
tinction than the degradation inherent in slavery — 
in this as their shroud they depart from the pres- 
ence of their oppressors into the silence of the 
tomb! Again, sir, before the face of this inquiry 
your philosophy is confounded and speechless. 
But the solution is plain and easy, and is found in 
the character of the governments under which they 
live. One abhors the doctrine of the right of 
property in the persons of its subjects; the other 
has no existence but in that odious doctrine, and 
to deprive it of that right would annihilate it in a 
moment. Though I may notice the subject here- 
after, I will make a few passing remarks here on 
the case of children in their minority. You tell 
us, "Not to accord to them this extreme form of 
control," . . . "absolute despotism," . . . 
"would be a practical denial of their natural 
rights." (Page 113.) Then you attempt some- 
what adroitly to convert slaves into minors, and 
say, "Any other form of government" — than an 
absolute despotism — "would be, in their case, as 
well as in that of minors, a practical denial of their 



g§ REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

ri"-lits." (Page 128.) All this effort to convert 
slaves into "minors" fails yon, unless you can 
fully demonstrate that Gocl has constituted minors 
marketable "chattels, to all intents, constructions, 
and purposes whatever, in the hands of their oivn- 
ers^ This you can never do. If man, without 
divine authority, has so constituted them it is dia- 
bolical wickedness! In the judgment of sensible 
men such a plea for slavery will neither do service 
for the system, nor honor to its author. Although 
minor children are not parties exercising ^^self- 
control" in forming their relations to domestic 
government and authority, there is no point in the 
divine arrangements concerning man, where more 
ample provision is made to secure the interests of 
those concerned than in this case. God has 
planted in the hearts of parents, as an element of 
their nature, that principle of sympathy, kindness, 
affection, and interest for their offspring, and in 
the hearts of children that sense of dependence, 
confidence, and love toward parents which, unless 
perverted by such absurdities as your philosophy 
teaches, or by vice and neghgence, will most effect- 
ually secure the greatest blessings to both parties — ■ 
the governors and the governed. The relations, du- 
ties, responsibilities, confidence, love, and interests 
arc reciprocal This is God^s first and unalterable 
principle in regard to government, order, and hap- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 99 

piness in human society; and mankind are in- 
debted, under God, to this effective pmidple of rec- 
ijv'ocit?/ in domestic and other governments, for all 
the civilization and its accompanying blessings of 
every kind with which the world is now favored, or 
that it will ever enjoy. How intensely odious does 
the government of the slave system appear in the 
light of these facts ! ! That system, wholly dis- 
carding the principle of reciprocity, lays violent 
hands on the order God has ordained, rending do- 
mestic ties, and scattering whole families among 
the markets as articles of commerce ! Under the 
former system its subjects are raised from minority 
to manhood, and, if virtuous, may be elevated to 
the highest positions of honor and usefulness. Un- 
der the latter, its victims, however virtuous, are 
degraded from manhood to minority, and from that 
to "chattels in the hands of their owners" — worked 
as beasts of burden down to the grave, and pushed 
into eternity from the midst of the darkness, ig- 
norance, and horrors of perpetual, involuntary 
slavery! There must be a potent cause to pro- 
duce such an effect. I repeat it, sir — and hope the 
American people will "repeat it till it passes into the 
currency of a proverb," and that they will arise in 
their moral strength and apply the proper remedy — 
it is that government which gives the right of in op- 
erty in the persons of human heings that enslaves, 



l-OO'- . REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

degrades, and brutalizes its subjects, the victims of 
its avarice; while those governments which ex- 
clude this principle, in which alone slavery has its 
existence, protect, elevate, and secure to their sub- 
jects the privileges and blessings of freemen. 
These unquestionable facts must forever confound 
your philosophy. One other point before I close 
this letter. All just governments have for their 
object the greatest good of the governed — their 
subjects. No government can be approved of 
God or be a blessing to man, which discards this 
object. This fact is prominent in the revealed will 
of God in regard to the government of man. In 
that government established in the first family of 
earth, afterward revived in the household of Abra- 
ham, then expanded over the Hebrew nation, and 
finally perfected under the Gospel for the govern- 
ment of his people, and adapted to all time and 
all people throughout the world — the all-controlling 
principle is the greatest good of the governed. The 
history of our race in the past demonstrates that 
wherever this principle has been observed and 
acted upon, the intended results — peace, prosperity, 
and virtue — have followed; and where it has been 
disregarded the judgments of Heaven have sooner 
or later chastened the outrage on the rights of 
man and the authority of God. 

I have not forgotten, dear sir, that you rely with 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. IQI 

confidence on Hebrew servitude in support of the 
system of slavery. As I shall notice your Scrip- 
ture argument hereafter, I only remark here, 1. 
If I were to admit — which, however, I do not — 
that it was slavery proper^ it would neither affect 
the facts I maintain nor serve your cause; for it 
was clearly an exception to the general principle of 
government estabhshed among that people. 2. As 
an exception^ it belonged distinctly to that part of 
Hebrew institutions which have long since been 
abrogated by the authority of God; consequently, 
whatever may have been its character, it could not 
be perpetual, and is excluded irrevocably from the 
principles of the Divine government. God may 
tolerate governments which discard this principle 
in the same sense he does wickedness in other re- 
spects, but the whole history of nations is but the 
record of the wrath of Heaven in their overthrow 
and ruin in the end. We have right before our eyes 
the clearest demonstration of the perfect contrast be- 
tween the divine principle — govermiunt for the, 
greatest good of the governed — in the prosperity of 
the free citizens of this repubhc; and the oppo- 
site, not to say diabolical, principle — of government 
for the greatest good of the governors or oivners of 
the governed — in the ignorance and degradaLion of 
the millions of slaves in the southern states. 

The American governments — state and na- 



102 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

tional as it regards their free citizens, whatever 

else they contain, and however they may be pros- 
tituted to other purposes by weak or wicked men, 
most distinctly embody this great and righteous 
principle of government for the greatest good of the 
governed. Under this principle, within the brief 
space of a century, our advancement in every thing 
pertaining to domestic and social elevation and 
happiness, to civil and rehgious privileges, to the 
development of national resources of wealth and 
power, and the national character formed, and the 
high position taken among the nations of the 
earth, are without an example in the history 
of our race. The melancholy contrast which 
the degi'aded condition of the slaves presents 
in the face of this prosperity, forces again upon 
the mind the inquiry. What is the cause ? The 
only answer which can be given, without uttering 
falsehood, is the one that has met you at 
every point in this investigation — the right of 
property in the person of human beings, based on 
the principle of government for the greatest good 
alone of the governors — the owners of the suh- 
jecU governed! Over this system of "abomina- 
tion which maketh desolate" hangs the frowns and 
curse of Heaven; on the other rests the smiles 
and promises of Providence. 

In closing this letter, and dismissing your phi- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 103 

losophy, I ask your attention to some points which 
have been developed in this discussion thus far: 
1. Your philosophy, which lies at the foundation 
of your whole system of slavery, the analysis of 
slavery, government, and the constitution of huinan 
society. 2. You define slavery to be "control by the 
will of another, with its correlatives — master and 
slave — with submission or subjection implied." 3. 
Government implies control and submission or 
subjection ; consequently, all governments necessa- 
rily include the principle of slavery as an "essen- 
tial element." 4. Government is composed of the 
"antagonistic" principles of freedom: self-control, 
and slavery — control by the will of another. 5. 
That to the same degree the subjects of govern- 
ment are controlled they are slaves ; and that the 
degree of that control must be determined by the 
intelligence, moral and social condition of the gov- 
erned. 6. That the intelligence, moral and social 
state of the Africans in this republic are such as 
to justify and require their absolute control in a 
state of perpetual servitude and bondage; and 
that in such a condition they may and ought to be 
used as property. On these principles of your 
philosophy you base the whole system of Ameri- 
can slavery; and all the proofs, arguments, and 
conclusions are conformed to this philosophy, and 
derive their apparent strength from its assumed 



10-i REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

soundness. And now, Doctor, you may recollect 
that, early in this correspondence, I respectfully 
suggested to you that if your philosophy is false, 
and fails you in these particulars, it must be fatal 
to your whole defense of this monstrous system. 

I therefore beg your attention to the following 
points: 1. I have shown, from slave laws of the 
south, and from facts and arguments, with a clear- 
ness that can neither be evaded nor refuted, that 
your definition of slavery is totally false ; and that 
"control and submission, or subjection," are mere 
accidents of the system; and that its only exist- 
ence is in the owner's absolute right of property 
in the person of the slave, and his power under the 
laws of property to use him as a "chattel" — an 
article of merchandise in the market. 2. That 
your philosophy of government is equally erro- 
neous; for, though it embodies the principle of 
control and submission, it absolutely discards the 
only principle that gives being to slavery — the 
right of 'property in the person of the governed. 3. 
That your assumption that citizens are slaves to 
the extent they are controlled by government, is 
an unwarrantable perversion of terms and lan- 
guage, an oflense to self-respect and common-sense, 
and a contradiction of positive facts. 4. That 
your rule for enslaving and making merchandise 
of men, their mental and physical condition, is an 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 105 

absurdity, and opposed to the whole order and gov- 
ernment of God. 6. That just and righteous gov- 
ernments, approved of God, are designed for the 
greatest good of the governed ; and the history of 
our race demonstrates the practical results of such 
governments to be the elevation of the condition 
and the perfecting of the humanity of the gov- 
erned. 6. That the government of the slavery 
system is, in every vital point, directly and neces- 
sarily opposed to this principle of righteous gov- 
ernment, and that the practical result of this gov- 
ernment is the degradation, misery, and ruin, as far 
as this world is concerned, if not the future also, 
of the governed, as demonstrated by the condition 
of the slaves of the south. Therefore, being op- 
posed to the order of God and the rights and high- 
est interests of man, it is an ungodly system of 
oppression and cruelty ! 

Intending to address you again soon, 
I remain yours, as ever, 

J. H. P. 



106 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 



LETTER V. 

ERRONEOUS DEFINITION OF NATURAL 
RIGHTS EXPOSED. 

Doctrine of natural rights— Men concede some rights, under legiti- 
mate governments, to secure protection in the use of others — Ar- 
gument defective in changing the terms in the premises and the 
conclusion— Natural rights are the good — The good is natural 
RIGHTS — The will of God not the rule of right only as it conforms 
to what is right in itself independent of the Divine will — The fal- 
sity and absurdity of these doctrines — The cause of slavery de- 
mands this denial of the sovereign will — " Extreme form of despot- 
ism the imtural right of infants and slaves " — The whole position 
false. 

Rev. W. a. Smith, D. D.: Dear Sir, — Having 
dismissed your philosophy for the present, I turn 
to what may not unaptly be called your metaphys- 
ics of the "constitution of the human mind," and 
the "natural and inalienable rights of man." As 
the doctrines of your fourth lecture, "The Ques- 
tion OF Rights," are in conformity with the prin- 
ciples of your philosophy, and as the utter fallacy 
and failure of that to sustain the system of slavery 
has been shown, and as the fabric must fall with its 
foundation, I might pass this part of your learned 
labors without particular notice. But as you have 
given the subject of "natural rights" a prom- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 107 

inent position in your Temple of Slavery, you 
might suppose, should I pass it without further 
attention, there is something in it so formidable as 
to deter us from examination. 

1. To estabhsh your theory of " natural rights " 
you deny "that legitimate government is a conces- 
sion of some rights in order to secure others." 
(Page 130.) Again, "If, then, government be a 
concession of the right of self-control in this 
sense" — giving up any part of self-control — "it 
is the concession of an inalienable right, and 
should be abandoned as a piece of folly." (Page 
80.) It is doubtful whether there is any man of 
intelligence who will not be surprised, that you 
should proclaim a doctrine that contradicts the ob- 
servation and experience of the civilized world, un- 
less his mental vision is wholly obscured by prej- 
udice or interest. Its fallacy is exposed and re- 
futed by your own practice. Why do you not 
pursue and administer personally the merited pun- 
ishment upon the thief who steals your horse? 
Why do you not tvith your oivn hands, without 
"judge or jury," execute the wretch who maliciously 
murders your wife or child ? Why, sir, do you not 
immediately, and with your own hands, avenge 
all your wrongs? God has ordained that the 
thief shall be punished, and that the willful mur- 
derer shall die. The only answer that truth can 



%§^ HEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

dve is, you have conceded to government the natu- 
ral right which God has given you of self-control 
to avenge your wrongs in the absence of govern- 
ment, and your concessions to it. And you have 
acquired the right, which, without such concessions 
and relations to government, ?/ou had not, and coidd 
not have, to demand of government not only to 
avenge your wrongs, but to protect you in the en- 
joyment of all your retained rights, privileges, and 
acquirements. Now, your case is but a fair speci- 
men of every man under "legitimate government." 
I feel indeed tempted further to expose the absurd- 
ity of this doctrine, but forbear lest I should seem 
to suspect the intelligence of the reader. I can 
not, however, dismiss it without an expression of 
sympathy for the reputation of those distinguished 
statesmen, jurists, and patriots of our early history; 
that, after all they have done to establish "legiti- 
mate government," and after all the distinguished 
blessings their labors have conferred on the nation, 
they should have had the misfortune not to 
foresee that Doctor Smith, of Virginia, in the middle 
of the nineteenth century, would discover and ex- 
pose to the world their egregious ignorance ! But 
so it is, and we must submit. Their reputation 
must go down to posterity under the posthumous 
odium of ignorance of a flict which formed an ele- 
ment in their own daily experience, and that of 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 109 

every man under proper government; that just 
and legitimate government is not a concession of 
some rights, in order to secure the protection of 
government in the use and enjoyment of all other 
reserved rights. 

2. You say, "Natural rights are, of course, such 
as are inherent in the constitution of man; inalien- 
able, because in point of fact he can not be sub- 
stantively deprived of them." (Page 77.) Now, 
if you include in this definition man's powers to 
will, act, acquire, possess, appropriate, and enjoy, it 
lays death at the very foundation of slavery; for 
that system deprives its victims of all these rights 
as it regards their own personal interests. But if 
you do not include these particulars, your defini- 
tion is a mere evasion, intended to obscure the 
question and to make a false issue, such as may 
better suit the exigencies of the slavery system. 
That the system required you to obscure, instead 
of elucidate the question is suggested by the fact 
that you ask, "What are rightsV (Page 78.) 
Again you inquire, "What are rightsV (Page 
80.) Then you change the number of your terms 
from the plural to the singular, " ^Ae r'lght^'' (page 
82,) and then to 'Hhe right itself''' You again 
change your terms, and reach the luminous conclu- 
sion that "the rights therij is the good''' (Page 
85.) And that there may be no mistake in this 



110 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

important matter you give it another turn, and tell 
us, "The essential good, that is, the rights (Page 
94.) So that the conclusion of the whole matter 
of "natural inalienable rights" is, "the right is the 
good and the good is the right!" What a discov- 
ery ! and will not a grateful posterity perpetuate 
the memory of its author by monumental honors 
as great, at least, as those of the system he de- 
fends ? 

With this presentation of the case, mainly in 
your own language, it requires but little attention 
to detect the fallacy in your process of reasoning. 
You start with "natural inalienable rights" in the 
premises, then shift your terms in number, name, 
and meaning, and bring the moral quality of actions 
alone into the conclusion! By such a process any 
thing can be proved or disproved, just to suit the 
time, but it requires such logic to defend slavery, 
and the system merits just such a defense ! The 
case of ''Cains Toranius,'''' and ''Home Tooke,'' 
(pages 83, 8G,) may illustrate the moral quality 
of actions, but have no more connection with the 
question of "natural rights" than your conclusion 
has with your premises; that is, none at all. Your 
explanation for this course of reasoning is as strange 
as your logic; namely, the ambiguity or indefmite- 
ness of our language. You tell us, "Webster gives 
correctly some forty different meanings of this 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. HI 

term " — rights — " together with several subordinate 
senses in which it occurs, all of which are in com- 
mon use." (Page 82.) Hence your reason, I 
suppose, for changing the term "natural rights" 
for the term "good," and "the good;" thereby to 
obtain a definite or unamhigiious term. If this is 
not the case it will be as difficult for either you 
or your friends to defend your unauthorized use of 
terms, as it will be to defend the conclusion you 
reach by such a process. Now, Doctor, is it possi- 
ble you overlooked the fact, or if you did not, how 
is it that you never hint to your readers that the 
same Webster gives correctly some sixty different 
meanings of the term good, together with between 
thirty and forty subordinate senses in which it 
occurs, all of which are in common use ? So far 
then from changing an indefinite for a definite term, 
you have only shifted off an indefinite term for one 
still more so. Moreover, the term "good" may 
be used in a hundred cases — as a good house, a 
good farm, a good wagon — where "right" would be 
nonsense, "rights" ludicrous, and "natural rights" 
intensely absurd. You either overlooked or ig- 
nored these facts. If the former, I can not see 
how you will escape the charge of carelessness. 
If the latter, some may charge you with conceal- 
ing the truth as the only means of defending 

slavery. 

^ 10 



112 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

This is not all. Your defense of the ^^ peculiar 
institution" has forced you into a "peculiar atti- 
tude" in regard to the tvill of God as the rule of 
right. Most of your speculations here are falla- 
cious, if some of them do not approximate "pro- 
flmity." You say, "We can not agree with Tooke, 
Paley, Webster, and many others of gi^eat dis- 
tinction, that RIGHTS and duties which are recipro- 
cal, are resolvable alone into the will of God — have 
his will alone for their ultimate foundation. I take 
gi'ound back of this. True, I say with them — and 
I claim full credit in the declaration — that the vo- 
litions, the acts of God are always right; but I 
do not say that his will makes the essential or true 
distinction between right and 2vrong. We dare not 
assume that God could, by an act of volition, 
make the right to be the turong, and the wrong 
to be the right — good evil, and evil good!" 
(Pages 90, 91.) "We take ground back of 
this. ... It is true that both rectitude and 
duty, together with liberty, are resolvable into the 
essential good. . . . Freedom, rectitude, and 
duty are the modes of thought in which we con- 
ceive of the good as existing in the soul of man, 
and that they are, each of them, in their distinct 
nature and harmonious union, the true ideal of 
good." . . . "And concerning the good in 
itself, which is thus in a humble degree perceived 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 113 

by US, it is certainly a reality which is immutable 
and eternal. God did not make it, nor was it 
made. It is of the essential nature of God, and 
eternal. He is the great impersonation of the 
good. His will, his vohtions, in all cases, are but 
the expressions of this high attribute." (Page 
92.) "That the will of God did not make the 
right in itself, will readily appear. Is it to be con- 
ceived that there ever was a period in eternity 
past, when truth was not truth, or when truth did 
not exist? when the good was not the good, or 
when the good did not exist?" (Page 93.) . . . 
" Hence his will is a rule of right, because in all 
cases it conforms to the good, but it did not make 
the good. Therefore the right, as it conforms to 
the essential good, is of the nature of the (jood. 
It is properly a significate of the good, and not a 
significate of the will of God'' (Page 94.) . . * 
"H^WGQ, freedom is mine, duty is mine, and recti- 
tude is mine, because the good is mine, and those 
are the elements of the good, each one implying 
the others. Hence arises the idea of natural 
rights ; that is, the right with which I am endowed 
by the constitution of my nature as a rational be- 
ing. But what is that right? Evidently the 
good. The good as an attribute is in my posses- 
sion. I am constituted with it and by it. Hence 
it is inalienable. Divest me of the good as an 



tm REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

attribute of my nature, that is, liberty, rectitude, 
and duty, and I sink at once in the scale of being; 
I cease altogether to be a rational or accountable 
being." (Page 97.) In this, as in other cases, I 
have allowed you to speak for yourself; hence this 
lengthy quotation. Here, also, in your learned 
labors to settle a foundation on which to rest the 
system of slavery, you have not only failed, and 
involved the question of "natural rights" in ob- 
scurity, but also yourself, or your system, in con- 
tradictions and absurdities. 

First. For, 1. You make "freedom, rectitude, 
and duty, each one implying the others, the ele- 
ments of the ESSENTIAL GOOD, as existing in the 
soul of man." 2. This good is "immutable and 
eternal; God did not make it, nor was it made. 
It is of the essential nature of God, and eternal." 
3. Then this good, the elements of which are 
"freedom, rectitude, and duty,'' and which your 
logic substitutes for "natural rights," is either pe- 
culiar to man, or peculiar to God, or common to 
both, or belongs to neither. If the first, then 
there "exists in the soul of man" an "uncreated, 
immutable, and eternal " principle, which you call 
the "essential good!!" This flatly contradicts 
common-sense and the word of God, which every- 
where recognize man as a created being in all tlie 
elements of his nature. If the second, it implies, 



AND PEACTICE OF SLAVERY. 115 

to say the least, irreverence in applying to God the 
term rectitude, which implies, as to man, conform- 
ity to rules prescribed for moral conduct, but can 
never be so applied to him. But, further, it in- 
volves the absurdity of applying the term duty to 
God! Duty always implies obligation, with real 
or relative inferiority or subordination. To apply 
the term, in any sense authorized in holy Scrip- 
ture, to God, is but little if any thing less than 
profanity. If the thirds it materializes the Di- 
vine nature by constituting an element of char- 
acter which belongs necessarily and alone to 
created beings — obligation to duty — a principle of 
"the essential nature of God;" and it deifies man 
by investing him with an "uncreated, immutable, 
and eternal" element of character which belongs 
alone to God! If the fourth — and this must be 
the fact, unless your theory is potent enough to 
sustain these contradictions and absurdities, if not 
profanities — your "essential good," then, in the 
character you have given it, and in which your logic 
allows it to usurp the place of "natural rights and 
the sovereign will of God," belongs neither to God 
nor to man, and has no existence only as an "ab- 
straction" in a theory which is blindly laboring to 
prove that an unholy, earth-born system of human 
oppression and slavery is of heavenly and divine 
origin ! 



116 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

Secondly. The terms '^ good " and "rights," with 
all they are descriptive of, are both relative, and 
have no abstract, separate, or independent exist- 
ence. They can exist only in relation to some 
body, or some being, as an appendage, attribute, or 
quality. And to talk of either as independent of 
that ahwlute relation is an offense alike to common 
intelligence and the teachings of the Bible. Yet 
you affirm that the "good," which in your logic 
is but another term for "natural inalienable 
rights," "rights," and "the right," is "uncre- 
ated, immutable, and eternal, and of the essential 
nature of God;" but his "nature" is ahsolute, inde- 
jundent, and not relative. Therefore, you must 
confine the "good" — natural rights — alone to 
God, or you must invest man with the uncreated 
and essential nature of Jehovah. And strange as 
it may appear you have "entoiled" yourself in 
that very absurdity. Hence you say, " The good 
as an attribute is in my possession. I am consti- 
tuted with it and by it. Hence it is inalienable." 
That is, man is "endowed by the constitution of 
his nature as a rational being" with an "uncreated, 
immutable, and eternal" principle which is of "//^e 
essential nature of GodlT Doubtless nothing 
but a Wind devotion to an indefensible cause could 
have betrayed you into such an unenviable at- 
titude. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 117 

Thirdlfj. But, sir, though I might be inclined 
to tolerate your logic if it merely deified man, it 
becomes detestable when it attempts to rob God. 
You distinctly deny that "rights and duties, which 
are reciprocal, are resolvable into and have the will 
of God alone for their idtimate foundationr 1. 
If your doctrine be correct, then it is certain 
the Savior committed an egregious error when he 
taught his disciples, and through them the world 
of mankind, to pray, "Thy will be done on earth, 
as it is done in heaven." The man, according to 
this infallible teaching, who does the ivill of our 
Father who is in heaven, performs everi/ did?/, per- 
sonal and relative, which belongs to his position in 
hfe, whatever that position may be, reaches the 
highest point of human perfection attainable in 
this world, and approximates the perfection of the 
inhabitants of heaven, as near as it is possible for 
man to do while on earth. He has, and can have, 
no other rule of duty than the Divine will, for that 
will reaches everi/ duty required of man. 2. With 
this denial, as rights and duties involve the high- 
est interests of man, it w^as reasonable to expect 
that you would give us a plain and intelligible rule 
governing those interests, in the place of the will 
of God, rejected by you; but you appear to have 
lost the question in the end, in the midst of your 
metaphysics and moral philosophy. 3. Rights 



Ili. REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

and duties necessarily imply a law or rule invest- 
ing one with authority to require duties, and 
obliging another to their performance. And such 
rule, if righteous, must limit the claims on the one 
hand and the obligations on the other within the 
bounds of right and justice. In the absence of all 
such rules no one has a right to claim duties, nor 
are any bound to render service; "for, where there 
is no law there is no transgression." 4. Every 
moral rule for the government of intelligent beings, 
regulating their reciprocal rights and duties, can 
only exist as an effect^ produced by an intelligent? 
competent cause having authority to prescribe such 
rule. Any man must be reckless of his reputa- 
tion or his cause must be desperate, who will as- 
sert that a rule of that character can exist without 
having its "ultimate foundation" in the ivill of 
some intelligent being. And to say that such a 
rule, by whatever term designated, for the govern- 
ment of the reciprocal rights and duties of man, 
is self-existent or "uncreated and eternal," in any 
other sense than as the effect of the ivill of God, 
is either to exclude him from the moral govern- 
ment of the world, or to compel him to govern by 
a rule or law independent of his own will! The 
one would approximate atheism, the other blas- 
phemy! But, not to pursue this question further 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 119 

in that direction, I ask your attention to it in 
another view. « 

If there is any thing inteUigible to be gathered 
from your learned labors on this subject, it is, 1. 
That you have absorbed "natural inahenable 
rights," "rights," "the right," and the "rule of 
right," into what you are pleased to call the "es- 
sential GOOD." 2. You have compounded this 
essential good of "-freedom^ rectitude^ and duties ^ 
3. This good, constituted of these "elements," has 
not the 'Huill of God as its ultimate foundation," 
but is "uncreated, immutable, and eternal." Now, 
dear sir, as I have notified you in another place, 
the elements of which this uncreated good is com- 
posed have necessarily only a relative existence. 
Freedom can have no possible existence only in 
relation to a being which is free; rectitude can not 
exist but in relation to beings possessing that vir- 
tue ; duties are impossible only in relation to those 
capable of performing such works. Freedom where 
no one is free, rectitude where no one possesses 
that virtue, duties where there is no one to per- 
form them, is a contradiction, an absurdity, a posi- 
tive impossibility! Then, sir, "I take ground back 
of this" — the "elements" of your "essential 
good" — and inquire for the origin of those to 
whom freedom, rectitude, and duties are relative, 

11 



im BEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

and without which relation they can not possibly 
exist. Whatever may be the facts with regard to 
other beings, these "elements" or characteristics 
belong appropriately to man, and, so far as his case 
is concerned, or they apply to him, can have no 
other existence except in relation to man. Now, 
if the 2viU of God is the ultimate foundation of the 
being of man, and these elements combined have 
no existence only in their relation to him as qual- 
ities or circumstances of his character, they are as 
absolutely dependent on the Divine will for their 
existence as man is for his being. But man ex- 
ists alone by the tvill of God, The will of God or- 
dained his constitution and the relations out of 
which reciprocal rights and duties arise, and with- 
out such acts and will of God man never could 
have had a being. Therefore, these elements — 
your "essential good," and which your specula- 
tions make independent of the Divine will, "un- 
created, immutable, and eternal" — are as positively 
dependent on the will of God for their existence 
as man is for his; but man is absolutely depend- 
ent; consequently, your "uncreated good existing 
in the soul of man," is a preposterous fiction, hav- 
ing no foundation in the experience of man, com- 
mon-sense, or the word of God, and merits the 
severest reprehension for assaihng the sovereignty 
of the Divine will. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 121 

From these conclusions your theory of " essen- 
tial good," which you have substituted for the will 
of God and natural rights, can escape only by 
either maintaining that freedom can exist where no 
one is free, rectitude where no one possesses that 
virtue, and that duties can be performed without 
any one to perform them, or by denying that 
man — with his constitution, powers, relations, 
rights, obhgations, and capacities of possessing and 
enjoying — exists by the express order and will of 
God. The former would be extreme folly; the 
latter a total renunciation of the teachings of the 
holy Scriptures, and the being and character of 
God! 

Fourth. The apparent difficulties you attempt 
to throw in the way of the supremacy of the Di- 
vine will, are so much more showy than profound 
that, while they may serve very well as a rhetorical 
embelhshment, they do injustice to your reputa- 
tion as a logician and divine. You gravely in- 
quire, " Is it to be conceived that there ever was 
a period in eternity past, when truth was not 
truth, or when truth did not exist? when the good 
was not the good, or when the good did not exist?" 
(Page 93.) 1. Your question, in regard to the 
" good," assumes that to answer in the affirmative 
would be false and absurd. I have only to re- 
mind you that all } our conclusions are sought with 



122 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

reference to man, and that his case is the main 
subject of this discussion, and then define " the 
good,'' in your own terms, to turn the whole force 
of your interrogatory against yourself For ex- 
ample, "Is it to be conceived that there ever was 
a period — previous to the creation of man — in 
eternity past, when freedom, rectitude, and duty — 
as they can have no being only as they relate to 
man — did exist?" To answer in the affirmative 
would be false, because it would contradict the 
experience of every man ; and absurd, for it would 
involve an utter impossibihty. 2. As to your 
question concerning the eternity of truth. Truth 
has no abstract existence, and exists only in rela- 
tion to beings, subjects, things, or objects, and is 
eternal precisely as the facts of which it affirms 
are eternal. What is realltj eternal is immutable ; 
but truth changes just as the facts to which it re- 
lates, or of which it affirms, change; hence, what 
is truth, or true to-day, may be false to-morrow. 
It was truth five years ago, more or less, that 
you had not written a book in defense of slavery; 
but now to affirm it would be false, because the 
facts have changed. The same process will prove 
the eternitij of en'or and falsehood with equal 
clearness. " Is it to be conceived that there ever 
was a period in eternity past, when the o^^osite of 
truth — error or falsehood — was not error or false- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 123 

hood; or when the opposite of truth — error or 
falsehood — did not exist?" 3. You very seri- 
ously assert. " We dare not assume that God could, 
by an act of volition, make the right to be the 
ivrong, and the tvrong to be the right — good evil, 
and evil good!" This grave cautionary sentence, 
and the doctrines it implies, derive their apparent 
plausibility from a secret changing of the true is- 
sue. The question is not whether God, consist- 
ently with his character, the constitution of man, 
and the order of things, established by his ivill for 
the government of mankind, could, "by an act of 
volition," noiv reverse that order so as to make the 
right to be the wrong, and the good evil; but, 
whether he could not, in the premises, in creating 
man and in estabhshing his relations and the order 
of government, have so constituted them as to 
make what is noiv right to have been the wrong, 
and the good evil. The Bible clearly teaches 
that God, "by an act of volition," or his sovereign 
will, created two distinct orders of intelligent be- 
ings — angels and men. 

It is also equally clear that he has so differently 
constituted them and established such a different 
order of relations and government for them, that 
for either to take, or attempt to take, the place of 
the other would be to convert the right into the 
wrong and the good into the evil. For example, 



124 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

should men undertake the work of angels, when 
ministers of Divine justice, as in the destruction 
of the first-born of Egypt and the Assyrian army; 
or should angels engage in the works of men, such 
as agriculture, or — which you say is the right and 
the good — go into the market and buy men, 
women, and children, and hold them as "chattels " — 
in either case, what is right and good for one class 
under the order established by the mil of God, 
would become wrong and evil under the order es- 
tablished by the same will for the other class. 
But God could have, "by an act of volition," 
created all angels, to the exclusion of man ; or he 
could have created them all men, to the exclusion 
of angels. To deny this would be to reject the 
character and being of God as revealed in the 
Bible. Hence, had he made all angels, what is 
right and good for man now would be wrong and 
evil to them as angels; or, if he had made them 
all men, what is right and good for angels now 
would be wrong and evil for them as men. More- 
over, God, by an act of volition, has made the same 
thing right and good at one time and wrong and 
evil at another time. Formerly, by the express 
will of God, it was the right and good for the Jew- 
ish high-priest and his people to worship God 
through the medium of the sprinkled blood of 
animals upon the altar and the mercy-seat— to 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 125 

neglect this was sin. But by the same Divine will 
that order of things is abolished, and it is now 
wrong and evil — being a rejection of Christ — to 
worship him in that way. Therefore, "by an act 
of volition," God has done the very thing you pro- 
nounce to be impossible ! This is another instance 
of the impotency of your theory, and a notice to 
inquirers after truth that your conclusions must be 
received with caution. You evidently felt that 
nothing could be gained for the system of slavery 
by a fair exposition of the question of "acquired 
rights/' as slaves can acquire nothing but what, by 
the laws of the system, absolutely belongs to their 
owners. What you have said, therefore, on that 
point, whether true or false, is of no consequence 
on this part of the subject. But why all this ex- 
penditure of learning, labor, and logic, "entoiling" 
yourself and system in those inconsistencies, falla- 
cies, and absurdities? Simply to fix premises from 
which to reach the marvelous conclusion that minor 
children, and "those in a similar condition" — 
slaves — have a "natural inalienable right" to be 
placed under an absolute despotism! "Therefore," 
you say, ''this extreme form of despotism is the 
natural right of infants." (Page 113.) Hence, 
"for the same general reasons, it is the duty of the 
state to place an uncivilized race — slaves of the 
south — which may chance to dwell within its 



iff ^ REVIEW or THE PHILOSOPHY 

borders under a similar form of government." 
Therefore, slaves must be placed under a similar 
extreme form of despotism, with the difference 
that they are, according to the slave laws, "to all 
intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever, 
chattels in the hands of then- owners!" Therefore 
slavery is right, and the slave has a "natural in- 
alienable right" to be reduced to perpetual, invol- 
untary bondage, placed under the laws of property, 
and to be used in the house, shop, field, and mar- 
ket, as human "chattels in the hands of the own- 
ers!!" This is natural rights with a vengeance. 
What a caricature of facts, and an insult to com- 
mon-sense! And yet, if this is not the conclu- 
sion at which you arrive your labor is wholly lost, 
and your book is worse than a blank. Still, Doc- 
tor, it may all be very plain to you and your ad- 
mirers, but I am sure that to all impartial and in- 
telligent men, another thing is much more plain ; 
namely, that it is the "natural inalienable righr 
of every man to call such logic exquisite nonsense. 
Hopeless as is the system of slavery here, at 
least as far as your logic is concerned, I can not 
dismiss this point without correcting a great 
blunder, and thereby removing another prop. To 
furnish a case analogous to the despotism of the 
slave system, you place minors under an "extreme 
despotism" of absolute control. DcHfotimi is de- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 127 

fined^ "Absolute power; authority unlimited and 
uncontrolled by man, constitution, or laws, and de- 
pending alone on the will of the prince" — in this 
case, the will of parents. Now, sir, in this entire 
matter there is not the least element of despotism 
to be found. God has constituted parents the 
natural guardians of their minor children; but, 
instead of the cold, iron heart and will of des- 
pots, he has given them, as an element of their 
nature, the warm, earnest, sympathetic, interested, 
affectionate hearts which, in instances without 
number, lead them to sacrifice ease, comfort, 
health, and life itself for the protection and well- 
being of their children; and, instead of investing 
them with the power of despots, he has given 
them authoritatively the constitution and laws by 
which they are to govern in his fear, and for his 
glory, and the highest possible good of their house- 
hold. And when parents faithfully discharge their 
duties according to their Divine requirements, so 
far is despotism or a particle of the degrading 
principle of slavery from being found there, that 
the love of God and virtue is there, and every ele- 
ment of the humanity of the children is developed 
and perfected in the highest degree. The case of 
children under the government of parents — the 
natural guardianship which God has appointed — 
analogous to the odious, unauthorized despotism 



128 REVIEW or THE PIIILOSOPUY 

of involuntary perpetual slavery ! ! To assert or 
assume it is but little less than an insult to 
Heaven, and a slander upon the order and arrange- 
ments of God. Slavery, as I have shown in an- 
other place, treats these high and holy relations, 
sympathies, and interests with contempt, and 
tramples them in the dust. For the system, with 
sacrilegious hands on the order God has ordained 
for the good of mankind, to attempt to derive sup- 
port from such a source, is but another demonstra- 
tion of its inherent depravity, and only aggravates 
its odiousness by laboring to degrade the pure and 
dignified institutions of Divine appointment to a 
level with itself 

Having brought to view the principal fallacies 
of }^our theory of "natural inalienable rights," I 
close this letter, and reserve for my next some 
facts and inferences by which the subject may be 
seen in its true character. 

In the mean time I remain yours, as ever, 

J. H. P. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 129 



LETTER VI. 

THE TRUE CHARACTER OF NATURAL RIGHTS 
OPPOSED TO SLAVERY. 

The intellectual and moral constitution of man opposed to the idea 
of property — God has not recognized him as property, nor author- 
ized others to do so — The true relation and claims of justice and 
benevolence — The development, maturity, and use of man's natural 
powers, intellectual, moral, and physical, utterly incompatible with 
the claims and operations of slavery. 

Rev. Dr. Smith. — As to facts bearing on this 
question: 1. God has given man, in his crea- 
tion, certain physical, moral, and intellectual pow- 
ers, which belong to his constitution and being, and 
without which he might be something else, but 
would not be man. This constitution and nature 
are common to the race, regardless of color or con- 
dition in life. 2. This constitution includes the 
capacity to reason, will, act, accumulate, possess, 
appropriate, and enjoy; and, by the express will 
of God, he was created perfectly free, as it regarded 
any being, except his Maker, having a right to re- 
strict him in the exercise and use of those powers 
and characteristics of his nature. 3. God gave 
man that capacity and abilities with the design 
that he should employ and use them for his benefit, 



130 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

and that he should possess and enjoy the results. 
To suppose the contrary of the first and second 
positions would contradict facts and universal ex- 
perience. To assume the contrary of the third 
would impeach the wisdom, goodness, and justice 
of God. 4. Therefore, man possessed, according 
to the order and will of his Maker in the premises, 
in his original constitution, the natural right to life, 
liberty, the powers of reasoning, of will, of action, 
of acquiring, possessing, and of appropriating and 
enjoying the results of his labors. With this 
matter-of-fact view of man's character and rights 
when considered apart from government, I have 
only to inquire what restrictions God put upon 
them directly in placing him under government, 
or indiredly by establishing permanent relations 
essential to human society — the state for which 
man was originally designed and created. If those 
natural rights are abridged, without involving in- 
justice and oppression, it must be by the authority 
of God, either exercised by himself or delegated 
to others for that special purpose. 

It is not necessary here to pursue this inquiry 
further than clearly to ascertain whether, in either 
of these ways, man's natural rights have been so 
restricted as directly, or by clear and legitimate 
consequences, to involve the principle or element 
of slavery. And I here keep distinctly before 



AND PUACTICE OF SLAVERY. 181 

your mind the essential characteristic of slavery — 
the life and being of the system — the right of 
property in the persons of the slaves as "chattels in 
the hands of their owners." It will not be denied 
by any who are acquainted with the subject, or 
any whose judgment deserves respect, that just 
and legitimate government originated with God, 
and that all such governments derive their author- 
ity from their conformity to the Divine will. And, 
1. The first government instituted by the supreme 
Ruler in which man was, and is, immediately con- 
cerned was domestic. It is specific^ authoritative^ 
and perpetual^ during man's probation on earth. 
It is based upon, and precisely adapted to, those 
relations which divine Wisdom ordained for the 
perpetuation of the race of man in this state of 
being. It is so recognized throughout the holy 
Scriptures; by the Savior, his apostles, and the 
Christian world to the present day ; and must be 
so recognized to the end of time. And the only 
question here is, did God in establishing this form 
of government so restrict man's original natural 
rights as to render the governed, or any portion 
of them, slaves — "chattels in the hands of their 
owners;" or by any legitimate consequences to 
include the element of slavery? The bare inquiry 
in the light of revelation is the unanswerable refu- 
tation of the affirmative. It has been shown in 



132 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

another place, with a clearness that can not be 
evaded, that instead of the domestic government 
ordained by infinite Wisdom being an "extreme 
despotism," including the corroding and odious 
principle of slavery, it is a government of justice, 
perfectly reciprocal in sympathies, affections, obli- 
gations, interests, and honors; and that, when 
faithfully administered, it tends at once to the 
development and perfection of the entire human- 
ity of our nature, and to elevate the governed to 
the highest standard of usefulness, happiness, and 
honor here, and to heaven and glory hereafter. 
So far then is the principle of slavery from being 
found here, that it is not allowed even to touch, 
with its polluted finger, the least particle of the 
government or relations which God has ordained 
in this department of his economy in regard to 
man! 2. The same is strictly true of man as a 
subject of government, in his social and political 
relations. Indeed, to suppose that God, in estab- 
lishing the primary relations and government of 
man, should utterly exclude the principle of slavery, 
and then should ordain other relations and institu- 
tions which directly conflict with, and absolutely 
destroy, the original plan by embodying the ele- 
ment of slavery, is more than an impeachment of— 
it is a direct indignity oftered to — the wisdom, 
justice, and goodness of God ! That he has not 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 133 

done so is sufficiently clear from the fact that, in 
all the learned labors and persevering struggles of 
pro-slavery philosophers and divines to sustain the 
system of slavery, no one of them has been able 
to cite the passage, or refer to the place in di- 
vine revelation where God has so abridged the 
natural rights of man, as above stated, as to reduce 
one portion of mankind to the condition of jj>ro/?- 
crty, in the hands of the other as their owners. 
If Heaven had ever issued such an edict, or es- 
tablished such an order among men, you, sir, in 
your zeal for slavery, would long since have settled 
the controversy and superseded your "philosophy," 
and all other authorities, by giving us the express 
declaration of God on the subject. This you have 
not done, and never will do, nor will any other 
ever achieve such a triumph for slavery, for the 
plain reason that God has never reduced his "own 
image," or man who was made in that image, to 
the relation and condition of property. Wherever 
this is done it is the work of wicked men at war 
with the will of Heaven. 3. I will only inquire 
here, whether the divine Being has clearly au- 
thorized one part of the human family so to 
abridge — ^or rather to annihilate — the natural 
rights of the other as to own, use, and in all 
respects treat their persons, soul, body, and spirit, 
as merchandise for the market. And I might 



1^- REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

here also respectfully challenge you, and the whole 
pro-slavery school of divines, infidels, and philoso- 
phers to show where God has directly or, by any 
acknowledged canons of interpretation, indirectly 
delegated any such authority to men. Just pro- 
duce that authority and it will at once estabhsh 
the system of slavery — even American slavery — 
and forever "put to silence the ignorance of fool- 
ish men." 

I will not, however, press you for your author- 
ity, as it would be to demand an absolute impossi- 
bility. That man was made for society, and that 
society requires government, and that government 
implies relative authority and subordination I 
readily admit. But it has already been clearly 
shown that the constitution of man — his very hu- 
manity, the special gift of God — is the necessary 
opposite of slavery; that the genius of just gov- 
ernment abhors the principle, and that the relative 
authority and subordination created by legitimate 
government, so far from containing the element, or 
sustaining the system of slavery, is a standing 
practical refutation of both, as demonstrated in all 
the free states in this republic, and also in the 
south in regard to the free white citizens in the 
slave states. 

Till the advocates of slavery adduce their au- 
thority from God to reverse the order of his gov- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 135 

ernment and enslave their fellow-men, I might 
here rest the case; but I examine it a little fur- 
ther. 

While the Author of our being has not made 
slaves of men himself, by subjecting them to the 
laws and uses of property, nor ordained relations 
or institutions, domestic^ social, or political, which 
reduce men to that state, nor authorized men to 
degrade theh^ fellow-men to the condition of chat- 
tels in the hands of their owners, he has dis- 
tinctly proclaimed principles of Divine authority 
and universal application which stand as an eternal 
testimony against the whole system of human 
slavery. "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, 
neither rob him." This is the authoritative, uni- 
versal, perpetual mandate of Heaven ; but slavery 
practically sets it at defiance, and, with a thousand 
aggravations, both defrauds, and robs millions of 
mankind without remorse. And, " Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor as thyself; I am the Lord," forever 
excludes the idea, and renders even the thought 
preposterous in the extreme, that God has invested 
one class of men with authority to reduce another 
class to the condition of property, and to supply 
the markets with their persons as articles of mer- 
chandise. 

It is questionable whether any other system of 

oppression on earth would have the effrontery 
12 



136 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

to affirm this, except the system of slavery. 
Again: "Therefore, all things whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them: for this is the law and the prophets." 1. 
This is an unchangeable article in the Divine con- 
stitution of God's moral kingdom among men. 2. 
It is the sum of the Divine will in regard to the 
relative duties of men to each other, presented 
with a perspicuity and comprehensiveness which 
nothing less than the wisdom of God could arrange. 
3. It comprises all the duties we owe to our fellow- 
men, and is of universal application, obligation, and 
authority. There is not only no authority here for 
converting men, women, and children into prop- 
erty, but, in the hght of this unequivocal declara- 
tion of the Divine will in the premises, before a 
man can hold his fellow as a slave in the charac- 
ter of a chattel, without a palpable violation of this 
Divine precept, he must be wilhng to abandon the 
relations, comforts, honors, and order of domestic 
life; all social and political privileges; relinquish 
self-respect, and consign himself, and his children 
after him, to ignorance, poverty, degradation, and 
toil, for life; and to be kicked, cursed, handcuffed and 
driven to market with other stock, and auctioned 
off as an article of trade, and when dead to be 
thrown into the ground with but little more cere- 
mony than attends "the burial of an ass." And 



AND PRACTICE OP SLAVERY. 137 

could any one be found to make this choice, so far 
from being suitable even for a slave, he would be a 
fool, and fit only for a place in the mad-house ! 
Clear as this case is, however, I will not close this 
letter without noticing the summary manner in 
which you have attempted to dispose of this Di- 
vine rule so formidable to the system of oppression 
you are so zealous to defend. 

You say "there are only two senses" in which 
this precept can be understood. 1. "Do unto an- 
other whatsoever you would have him do unto 
you, if you were in his situation;" or, 2. "Do 
unto another whatsoever you would have a right to 
require another to do unto you, if you were in his 
circumstances." (Pages 136, 137.) You admit 
if the law is to be understood in the first sense, 
slavery ought to be abolished; "for we should, no 
doubt, desire to be released, if we were in a state 
of domestic slavery." You dismiss the first 
^^ sense" of this rule as deserving but little notice, 
on the ground of the assumed absurdities that fol- 
low such an interpretation, or application. In the 
front of those absurdities, and the only one that 
has any plausibiUty— for the case of criminals is 
not the question-is that of children. You say 
"such an interpretation would not only abohsh 
slavery," but "it would reach to the domestic 
slavery of children also." The domestic slavery of 



138 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

children! Children "chattels in the hands of their 
owners " by the authority of God ! HandculFed and 
sent to market as articles of property or produce ! ! 
What an insult to truth and common-sense, and 
what a slander upon the institutions of Jehovah ! ! ! 
As I have heretofore demonstrated the utter fal- 
lacy and presumption of your theory in attempting 
to degrade minor children to the condition of 
slaves, the absurdities for which you have so sum- 
marily dismissed this application of the rule have 
no existence but in your perversion of terms, and 
your inveterate attachment to the system of slav- 
ery. Your treatment of the second "sense" of 
this Divine rule, though less offensive in form, is 
no less defective in fact, and is equally impotent 
both as to sustaining your system, or evading the 
force and authority of this universal law. You 
make the rule say, "do unto another whatsoever 
you would have a right to require of him," etc. 
But then there must be a righteous rule, or law, 
by which to determine what one man has a right 
to require of another. What is that law, and 
where is it to be found, which is to decide what I 
have a right to require of others in a change of 
circumstances? Dear Doctor, your system of un- 
conditional, involuntary, perpetual slavery stood 
before this holy precept as a guilty culprit before 
a righteous judge, and dared not tarry to make 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 139 

those inquiries, but hurried away as a fugitive from 
justice with indecent haste! It must, however, 
be brought back, though it should even require the 
potency of the "Fugitive-Slave law," and stand 
its trial. 

The rule or law which is to determine what I have 
a "right to require" of others must be either, 1. 
Benevolence, including mercy, grace, and humanity, 
to the exclusion oi justice; or, 2. 3Iere justice, to 
the exclusion of benevolence; or, 3. Justice in 
harmony iviih henevolence, grace, mercy, and hu- 
manity. This statement covers the whole ground, 
and one of those positions must constitute the 
rule by which we are to "do unto others as we 
would have them do unto us, and to love our neigh- 
bor as ourself " It can not be the first. This is 
impossible; for benevolence or any other principle 
that would exclude the presence and claims of 
justice in actions, would cease to be benevolence, 
and would become injustice. Your almost heart- 
less exposition of this truly Divine precept sub- 
stantially takes the second position; namely, 
justice, to the exclusion of benevolence; for no 
one has a right to require any thing of me only as 
such requirement is founded in strict justice. That 
there may be no mistake as to your application of 
this precept, you either did or did 7iot mean to 
exclude benevolence from that justice on which 



140 KEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

the "right to require" action is based. If the 
latter, then you have misstated the case, and have 
admitted a principle in the precept which will ut- 
terly destroy your whole system, and liberate ev- 
ery slave on the earth — benevolence, including 
grace, mercy, humanity, and love operating in 
harmony with justice. If the former, you take 
issue with Divine revelation, the genius of the 
Gospel of Christ, and the pure spirit of Christi- 
anity. It would be treating your intelligence and 
good sense with disrespect to attempt formally to 
prove to you that the redemption of the world, the 
whole Christian system, the triumphs of grace, 
the salvation of the unnumbered millions of our 
race in heaven — all have their foundation in the 
benevolence of God in harmony with his justice. 
Indeed, any attempt to separate and exclude be- 
nevolence from this constitution of God's moral 
government among men is at war with Divine au- 
thority; and your system is clearly chargeable with 
this sin. However, leaving you to dispose of 
those difficulties as best you can, I will try the 
claims of slavery on your own ground of strict 
justice, and the result must be fatal to the whole 
system of unrighteous despotism. The slave "re- 
quires" his liberty, and before you can deny him 
this "rigW you must demonstrate your right, 
founded in strict justice ordained of God, to hold 



AND PKACTICE OP SLAVERY. 141 

him as a "chattel in your hands as his owner." 
But it has been shown with a clearness and 
strength that defies the assaults of pro-slavery 
logicj that no such right was ever invested in man 
by the Divine will or authority. The Author of 
man's being has given him a constitution and 
powers which are inherently and necessarily the 
opposite of slavery, and that can never be prosti- 
tuted to that vile system but in violation of 
justice. He has excluded slavery from every re- 
lation, and from every form of government which 
he has ordained among men; and has authorized 
no man or set of men on earth to reduce men to 
the condition, and to put them in the relation to, 
and under the laws of property; consequently, 
every such act is a usurpation of Divine right, 
and an outrage upon the principles of justice as 
revealed to man in the word of God. Hence, 
every slave on earth has a rights founded in eternal 
justice, to require his liberty; therefore, placing 
the application of "doing to others as we would 
have the right to require them to do unto us," on 
the ground of stern justice, would liberate every 
slave under heaven. But when we give it the true 
apphcation of benevolence, operating to the full 
extent of its powers, in harmony with justice, it 
will do far more than merely abolish slavery. I 
need not tell you, sir, that benevolence — the be- 



142 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

nevolence of Christianity — can and does perform 
a thousand things which justice can not demand, 
but does not forbid. If I owe you but one dollar 
justice requires me to pay, and will never be sat- 
isfied without I do pay; but justice can not de- 
mand of me to give you a thousand dollars, how- 
ever pressingly your necessities may require that 
sum to relieve your sufferings. Benevolence, how- 
ever, may furnish you that amount, and if no one 
is defrauded by it, justice will not only approve 
the work, but will protect me in giving and you in 
receiving and enjoying the fruits of my benevo- 
lence. This is the true character of that holy 
precept. The great heart of our fallen race throbs 
with insuppressible desires for the exercise of be- 
nevolence wherever necessities and sufferings are 
found; and God designed, and has given man the 
example, that the crowning glory of this divine 
rule should be the holy work of benevolence on 
the broadest scale consistent with the right of 
justice. Any view of this rule more limited is a 
caricature of truth, and an indignity offered to its 
Author. Apply this Scriptural and only correct 
view of this subject to the system of slavery, and 
jusiice would not only disinthrall the enslaved and 
degraded millions of mankind, but would rejoice 
in, harmonize with, and protect benevolence in her 
Godlike work of pouring light upon their dark 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 143 

minds, binding up their bleeding hearts, relieving 
their necessities, and elevating them physically, 
morally, and intellectually till they should be 
raised up to the privileges and enjoyments of civ- 
ilization, Christianity, and freedom. 

With the errors of your explanation of this rule 
corrected, I have only to call up the leading points 
which have been estabhshed in this letter to see, 
with sufficient clearness, as far as the purposes of 
this discussion are concerned, the subject of man's 
natural rights in its true character, and the incur- 
able fallacies of your theory. 1. God originally 
endowed man, as essential to his being and charac- 
ter, with a capacity to reason, will, act, acquire, 
and enjoy. 2. That he designed those powers for 
active use, and that man should enjoy the results 
of their right application. 3. That man was free 
from every vestige of slavery in his person, his 
powers, his constitution, his relations, and his priv- 
ileges. 4. That from all the relations and govern- 
ments God has ordained among men slavery — the 
right of 2^Toperty in the person, soul, hody, and spirit, 
of human leings — is absolutely and forever ex- 
cluded. 5. While God himself has made man 
free, he has no where, in the whole range of revela- 
tion, authorized, directly or indirectly, men to en- 
slave their fellow-men by putting them under the 

laws of property as merchandise, and reducing 
13 



144 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

them to the condition of '' chattels in the hands of 
their owners'' 6. That God has authoritatively 
prescribed such rules and laws for the government 
of human conduct in all relations in life, of justice, 
benevolence, mercy, humanity, and love, as must 
necessarily, if obeyed, eternally exclude slavery 
from among mankind ; therefore, 7. Man, by the 
authority of his Maker and Judge, has the natural 
inalienable right to life, liberty, and the use of all 
the natural powers God has given him in the pur- 
suit of happiness, within the limits of the moral 
constitution under which divine Wisdom has placed 
him; namely, to love God supremely and his neigh- 
bor as himself, and to do unto others — according 
to the principles of justice in harmony with benev- 
olence, mercy, and humanity — as he would desire 
them to do unto him. So far, then, is slavery 
from "coinciding" with man's natural rights, that 
they are in eternal hostihty the one to the other. 
Infinite Wisdom and Goodness made man free, and 
he feels to the center of his heart wronged, robbed, 
and degraded when enslaved. But the record of 
God still lives in his bosom, and he only awaits the 
opportunity to arise and assert the rights with 
which Heaven has invested him, but of which the 
cowardice, cupidity, and crime of men have robbed 
him for a rime. I will only detain you to notice 
one item more in this communication. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 145 

You have reiterated till it will surely be remem- 
bered that man has ''no right to do ivrong^ Al- 
lowing the truth of this assertion, its proper appli- 
cation would ruin your whole system and totally 
abolish slavery. Men have "no right to do wrong;" 
but to hold and treat men, women, and children 
as property, is absolutely wrong, because contrary 
to the order and will of God ; therefore, men have 
no right to hold slaves. But this is not the con- 
clusion at which you were aiming; and I notice it 
as another instance of the blindness of your logic. 
However, if taken without its necessary restric- 
tions and qualifications, it is not true that men have 
no right to do wrong. To determine the right 
or wrong of actions there must be some principle, 
rule, or law by which such actions can be tried. 
Laws are either human or divine. Divine laws are 
all and always right. Human laws are frequently 
wrong and contrary to the Divine. Moreover, hu- 
man laws frequently attempt to regulate moral 
questions on which God has never authorized hu- 
man legislation. 

Now, it depends on which of those systems of 
laws is made the rule of action whether men have 
a right to do wrong or not. As far as human 
laws have authority from God to interfere, men 
have a right to disbelieve the Christian system; 
but such unbelief is wrong and wicked according 



146 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

to the Divine law. In this case, therefore, men 
have a right to do wrong. Furthermore, accord- 
ing to the Divine law every man has a right to 
believe and practice Protestant Christianity; but 
according to some human laws this is wrong, and 
will subject the offender to punishment or death. 

Hence, in all such cases, with many others 
which might be named, men have not only a right 
to do wrung, but it is their solemn duty to do so; 
for, though it is wrong according to human codes, 
it is right and duty according to Divine authority. 
"Judge ye whether it is better to obey God than 



men." 



These facts apply in all their force to the sys- 
tem of slave laws. The Divine laws make every 
man free ; the slave system reduces millions of the 
human race to hopeless bondage and degradation. 
Hence, what is right according to the slavery laws 
is wrong in the sight of the Divine code, and what 
the Divine law requires is wrong in the sight of 
the slave laws. 

Having exposed the absurdity of your theory 
that men have a natural rigid to he enslaved, and 
that it robs G od of his sovereignty ; and having also 
presented the subject of man's natural rights and 
G od's sovereign will i n their true character, as founded 
in the constitution and relations of man, and re- 
vealed in the Bible, I release you for the present. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 147 

intending soon, however, to call your attention to 
other points involved in this discussion. 
Still remaining yours, etc., 

J. H. P. 



148 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 



LETTER VII. 

FALSE DOCTRINE OF NATURAL RIGHTS 
APPLIED TO GOVERNMENT. 

"The doctrines of natural rights applied to government" — The de- 
pravity of man is merely deprivation — Man's " lower physical na- 
ture " at war with his " pure intelligence " — According to this 
doctrine the work of conversion must be performed on the body, 
and not the soul — Slaves must be placed under an extreme despot- 
ism, to prevent the destruction of their liberty, by the law of 
habit — The remedy worse than the evil — The assumed analogy 
between the condition of infants and that of slaves false and ab- 
surd — The system of slavery makes " savages " of slaves, and 
then, because they are such, claims the right to enslave them. 

Rev. Dr. W. A. Smith, — Your fifth lecture pur- 
ports to be "The Doctrines of Rights applied to 
Government." As I have evinced that ?/oiir doc- 
trines of rights are wholly erroneous, however well 
you may succeed in applying them to slave 
government — for this is the ultimate end you 
have in view — the result will be as fruitless as 
your doctrines are defective. I should be pleased 
to proceed at once to the examination of your 
Scripture arguments, as those, with your philosophy 
and doctrines of natural rights, are mainly relied 
on to support the system of slavery; but as you 
have thrown in a great amount of matter between 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 149 

those topics I will follow in your own order, though 
at the sacrifice of connection and method. Your 
ardent zeal for the perpetual enslavement of 
millions of mankind has not only vitiated your 
philosophy, and blinded your logic, but has also 
corrupted your theology. I hope, however, your 
morals will escape in this scene of confusion. 

In regard to the Ml of man you say, "The de- 
pravity of man's nature was the result of depriva- 
Hon, and not the infusion of an evil principle as 
an attribute of his nature." (Page 104.) And, 
after stating that, previous to the fall, "his lower 
physical nature operated in perfect and harmonious 
subordination to his higher spiritual nature," you 
add that, in the fall, "there resulted a deprivation 
of the divine Spirit, such as entirely changed the 
relation of those departments of his nature. Un- 
der the clouded condition of intellect, consequent 
upon this deprivation, his lower nature, with its 
appetites, propensities, and passions, is brought 
into constant and fierce conflict with his spiritual 
nature." (Page 105.) Who that has any knowl- 
edge of the subject would ever suppose this to be 
a statement of the Scripture doctrine, of the deep 
hereditary depravity of the moral, spiritual, and 
intellectual nature of man, by a Protestant doctor 
of divinity? You make man's depravity to con- 
sist entirely in deprivation, and to affect his spir- 



150 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

itual and moral nature, mainly through the 
agency of "his lower physical nature;" conse- 
quently, his lower physical nature is the main seat 
of human depravity! while everyone who is not 
an idiot knows that the physical nature of man — 
the body — is the mere agent of the mind, and 
always under its control where moral responsibility 
is concerned ; and moreover that the Bible every- 
where recognizes the soul — the mind — and not the 
body as the seat of human depravity and moral 
corruption. "For out of the heart, including the 
whole spiritual and moral nature of man, proceed 
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, 
thefts, false witness, blasphemies." Physical dis- 
ease — severe sickness — is the deprivation of 
health; and although it is "not the infusion of an 
evil principle as an attribute'' of the body, it is 
the presence and operation of a principle or influ- 
ence which affects the whole physical nature, and 
is the opposite of health; so also depravity is not 
only deprivation, but the presence and operation 
of an evil principle or influence that affects the 
whole moral and intellectual nature, and is the 
dnect opposite of moral hohness. 

In like manner you talk of and reiterate the 
terms, "the j^ire intelhgence, the precipient of 
good," etc., (page 112;) by which you mean the 
pure mind, or you utter what is unintelhgible. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 151 

If by '^jnire intelligence^'' or mind, you mean that 
it is unmixed with matter — material substances — 
it is nonsense; if you mean that it is morally jmre, 
without the sanctifying agency of the Holy Spirit, 
it is 2mtrue, or the Bible is false ! Your conclusion 
in this case is fully worthy your premises. Hence, 
entirely forgetting the fact that man was as posi- 
tively under the Divine government before the 
fall, as he was and is since his apostasy, you make 
the remarkable discovery that, in this state of 
"warfare of man with himself," the soul and body, 
each contending for the mastery, Divine and hu- 
man governments "became an actual necessity of 
his condition.''' The reason is obvious! "For it is 
only by reducing his lower [physical] nature to 
its original subordination and harmonious position, 
that an equilibrium will be estabhshed and his 
primordial happiness regained." (Page lOG.) 
Supposing this to be the object of government, 
what a grand display of human and Divine wis- 
dom and works, to subdue and reduce man's 
"lower physical nature" to subordination to his 
''pure intelligence^" or mind, as the only means of 
regaining his "primordial happiness," while an in- 
sect could paralyze the rebel's powers, and render 
them perfectly harmless in an hour ! If your doc- 
trines be credited, what an enormous error the re- 
ligious world has been in for nearly nineteen 



152 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

hundred years, with Christ, Paul, and Peter at its 
liead — teaching "except a man [his soul, not his 
^ lower physical nature'] be born of the Spirit he 
can not enter the kingdom of God;" and that "the 
heart [not the ^ower physical nature'] must be 
purified by faith." What heresy, to be laboring 
for the regeneration of the soul and the purifying 
of the heart, when all that is necessary to restore 
man to his original happiness is to reduce his lower 
nature to subjection to his pwr^ mind! 

Again, according to your theology, the work, in 
converting sinners, must be performed on their 
bodies — their "lower physical natures" — and not 
then: souls; and of course there is but little, if 
any, use for the agency of the Holy Spirit or the 
purifying grace of God. Dear Doctor, men of in- 
telligence, who are not acquainted with the fanati- 
cism of the pro-slavery spirit, will wonder how it is 
possible that any man of sense and talents should 
involve himself and his system in such monstrous 
absurdities, not to say gross heresies. The solu- 
tion, however, is the cause of slavery demanded 
it, and you had to obey, or to abandon one of the 
assumed strongholds of your beloved system of 
slavery. Having made the body, or "lower phys- 
ical nature" of man, the medium by which the 
mind communicates with the material world, and 
also made it the scat of human depravity^ and then 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 153 

having got up this "fierce war" between the de- 
praved hodij and the "ji:>?^r^" soul, the imminent 
danger arises "of extinguishing his own hberty by 
the law of habit," and of losing his freedom by 
the "ivill becoming enslaved to the basest passions 
of fallen nature," (page 128,) "losing the power 
of self-control," and becoming "confirmed in the 
habit of submission." Hence you say, "Now the 
will is, like all other faculties of the mind, subject 
to the great law of habit; and, if not checked, re- 
strained, according to the true idea of government, 
a habit of submission is formed, which, if not early 
dissolved, becomes a confirmed habit. The will, 
instead of being the governing power of the mind, 
becomes, in truth, the faculty governed. It has 
lost the poiver of self-control. It has become the 
slave of passion, confirmed in the habit of sub- 
mission." (Page 112.) Fortunately, however, for 
the fallen race you have found a remedy — a pana- 
cea, in "government," . . . "absolute gov- 
ernment," . . . "an absolute despotism," 
. . . "extreme form of despotism," . . . 
"absolute control by others," . . . and, "not 
to accord . . . this extreme form of control 
would be a practical denial of natural rights." 
(Pages 113, 114.) 

Here, then, we have at last the world's evil and 
its sovereign remedy — -the depravity of man's 



164 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

"lower physical nature" in rebellion against his 
"^;z;r6 intelligence" — mind; and an "absolute gov- 
ernment — an extreme despotism" — to subdue the 
rebel to its "former subordination," and to preserve 
[the will from "extinguishing its own liberty by the 
law of habit," and to " restore man to his primor- 
dial happiness!" 

Dear sir, I will not stop now to examine your 
mental philosophy in its relation to government 
other than to show that it contradicts the experi- 
ence of man, it contradicts the Bible, and it con- 
tradicts itself It is matter of universal experience 
and observation with mankind, that it is only by 
the exercise of the will that men resist, break up, 
and overcome hahits of any kind. Moreover, if 
the "power of self-control" be lost, by "habit" or 
any thing else, man ceases to be accountable for 
his actions, and can feel no guilt for any thing he 
may do; but men do experience guilt and condem- 
nation for their crimes, however strong their hahits 
of vice and sin may be. It contradicts the Bible. 
Your theory makes the "lower physical nature" of 
man the seat of depravity as the result of "depri- 
vation" merely; and you apply a physical rem- 
edy — "an extreme despotism" — to a moral mal- 
ady — human depravity. But the Bible every- 
where teaches that the mind or soul is the seat of 
this dreadful moral disease — depravity — conse- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 155 

quently, prescribes a moral and spiritual remedy — 
the truth, grace, and Spirit of God — to enlighten, 
regenerate, and, through the blood of the atone- 
ment, to sanctify the soul. But it contradicts 
itself What is submission to the "absolute con- 
trol of an extreme despotism" but an uninterrupted 
and positive habit; the direct and necessary oppo- 
site of SELF-CONTROL ? Hcnce, the remedy you pre- 
scribe is precisely the evil you propose to cure ! 
A palpable contradiction ! ! This will appear still 
further when your principles are applied to the 
cause you labor with so much zeal to sustain — the 
system of slavery. 

I have not forgotten, nor do I intend to over- 
look the fact, that you apply all the machinery of 
absolute control, despotism, etc., in the premises, 
to "infants and minors," and I also recollect the 
fact that all this learned labor on the case of 
minors and infants is to prepare a platform on 
which to build the system of involuntary, perpet- 
ual slavery. It is for this purpose you toil so 
hard to find, or create, analogies between their 
case and that of slaves; but you will remember, 
dear sir, that I have already more than once fully 
exposed the fallacy and absurdity of that view. I 
however again remind you that so far is the do- 
mestic relation of minors and parents from being 
that of despots, and serfs, or slaves, and the domes- 



156 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

tic government "an extreme despotism," that the 
will of God, distinctly revealed, is the authorita- 
tive law governing their reciprocal duties and obli- 
gations. "Fathers, bring up your children in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord." "Children, 
obey your parents in the Lord ; for this is right." 
Parents have no authority to govern contranj to 
the will of God; and children are not bound to 
obey contrary to the Divine will. Now, the case 
of "inllints and minors" and that of slaves are, 
in their main features and flicts, analogous or they 
are not If they are, you are entitled to the honor 
of discovering a fact involving great moral princi- 
ples which the Bible has failed to reveal; if they 
are not, your process of reasoning is grossly so- 
phistical. Let us examine : 

L Minor children are, by Divine authority, 
placed under the care of their parents as their 
natural guardians, and the Divine will, which ex- 
cludes from the relation every idea of despotism, 
is the rule of government; while slaves, accord- 
ing to your own showing, are placed under "an 
extreme despotism;" and, indeed, if you had re- 
mained silent on the subject, the slave laws of the 
south fully demonstmte the fact. 2. The govern- 
ment God has authorized over minors detests the 
idea that they are articles of commerce, and as 
such may be placed under the absolute control of 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 157 

the laws of property as "chattels" in the hands 
of their parents. But under the government of 
the slavery system, the slaves are held to be, "to 
all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever, 
chattels in the hands of their owners." 3. This 
government, appointed for minor children, is spe- 
cially designed to enhghten their minds and con- 
sciences, develop and mature their virtues, and in 
every respect to perfect their whole character for 
the responsibilities and dignities of free citizens 
and members of Christian communities; and the 
results which every-where follow the faithful ob- 
servance and administration of this government, 
clearly demonstrate the divinity of its origin. 

But the system of slavery places its subjects — 
its victims — the slaves, under a government skill- 
fully constructed, and specially designed to ex- 
clude from the minds and consciences of the 
slaves the light of literature and science, and all 
general and useful knowledge of every kind ; and 
that keeps them in gross ignorance of their own 
true character and natural rights, and of every 
thing else that would enlighten, develop, and ele- 
vate humanity above an unconditional, perpetual 
submission to the commands of a taskmaster, 
however unjust, oppressive, and barbarous such 
commands may be. Yet, in the face of these un- 
questionable facts, you make the erroneous and 



158 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

more than ludicrous statement in regard to slaves, 
"Any other form of government would be, in their 
case, as well as in that of minors, a practical de- 
nial of their rights ; because it would result in the 
annihilation of their essential rights; that is, 
the enslavement of their wills to the basest pas- 
sions of fallen nature." (Page 128.) Such a 
falsity, contradiction, and absurdity neither re- 
quu'es nor merits refutation or comment. Need I 
search further for your assumed agreement be- 
tween the case of "infants and minor children" 
and that of slaves? Sir, if my personal knowl- 
edge of you did not forbid it, I might suppose 
that you had treated the subject ironically; or 
that you had intentionally trifled with a grave 
question with a view to render it ridiculous. The 
case of minors and slaves analogous ! or the gov- 
ernment divine Wisdom and Goodness has or- 
dained for minor children, and that framed and 
sustained by slavery "despots," analogous, of the 
same character, and intended to produce the same 
or similar results ! ! What other system except 
that of slavery would have the effrontery to as- 
sume such an agreement between institutions where 
Heaven has ordained that nothing but conhmts can 
exist ! 

Having demonstrated that no such analogy as 
you have assumed exists, I shall not attempt to 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 159 

reconcile your position with either logic or reason, 
but will notice it from another point — the "law of 
habit" in respect to the slaves. In the case of 
minors, and that of an "uncivilized race that may 
chance to dwell among us" — the slaves of the 
south — your great fear is lest they should "ex- 
tinguish their liberty by the law of habit, the 
will having lost the power of self-control," and 
become ''confirmed in the habit of submission.''* 
Hence, they, and especially the latter, must be 
placed under the control of an "absolute and per- 
petual despotism." But what is the design and 
the residts of this despotism in the case of the 
slaves but to form, train, and compel them into the 
most inveterate habit of unconditional, perpetual 
submission? The whole machinery of slavery is 
constructed and worked on the very principle of 
"annihilating''^ even the desire of self-control, and 
to reduce the slave under the "law of hahif'' to 
the most abject, uncomplaining submission to the 
will of an owner, or "negro-driver." 

Light and knowledge are excluded from their 
minds, threats are denounced, curses are poured 
upon them, the lash is applied; and, in not a few 
instances, they are tortured in a manner that 
makes civilization blush; and all to subdue them 
to the "law of habit" of absolute submission. 

Moreover, they are not only denied the right to 
14 



160 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

exercise their own will, but, as a general fact, are 
put under the absolute control of the will of those 
who have not the fear of God before their eyes; 
and who, themselves, are governed and controlled 
by the worst passions of depraved humanity. I 
will not detain you here to enumerate the "appe- 
tites, propensities, and passions" which control 
many of those who control and subdue the poor 
degraded slaves to the "law of habit" of uncondi- 
tional submission. The tens of thousands of 
mixed color, and the almost tvliite among the 
slaves, indicate some of those "propensities," and 
also the kind of control exercised over them to 
prevent them from "extinguishing their liberties 
by the law of habit!" And this is "the doctrine 
of natural rights applied to government," and to 
prevent slaves from "losing the power of self-con- 
trol!" and to reduce their "lower physical nature 
to its former subordination to the jmre intelligence, 
and to restore them to primordial happiness!!" 

It would be trifling with inteUigent minds 
further to expose this, worse than weak, defense 
of the odious system of American slavery. Write 
on, Doctor. Give us another 'Hext-hooV on slav- 
ery. A few more "such victories will annihilate 
your army!" There are a few other items in 
this wonderful lecture deserving a little attention. 
You inquire, " What are the rights of men in the 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 161 

savage or uncivilized stateV and then applying 
this question to those "dwelling apart from civil- 
ized society," and beyond the Hmits of the gov- 
ernment of civilized communities, you reply, they 
"have a natural right to protection under given 
circumstances, and freedom from oppression under 
all circumstances, . . . and reasonable exer- 
tions to elevate their moral condition." (Pages 
123, 124.) "They have no right to claim, nor is 
the state under any obligations to allow them an 
equal participation in the sovereignty of the 
state — allow them a control in the aflairs of gov- 
ernment — share the authority to regulate our re- 
lations, domestic and foreign; and even to par- 
ticipate in governing our families." (Page 125.) 
Allowing this view in the main to be correct, your 
process of reasoning most strangely "jumps" to 
the conclusion that, because no obhgation exists 
to grant them the above privileges when beyond 
the limits of our government, therefore we have a 
perfect right, with the sanction of Heaven upon 
the operation, to go among them and secure by 
violence, fraud, and all other means possible, as 
many of those "savage or uncivilized" persons as 
can be obtained, and to bring them by force into 
the " civilized community," and not only withhold 
from them all those social, domestic, and political 
rights and privileges, but to reduce them and their 



162 KEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

unoffending posterity to unconditional, abject, per- 
petual slavery, and subject them to all the acci- 
dents and laws of property ! 

These are precisely the facts as to the history 
of slavery in this republic. Dwelling beyond the 
limits of our government and territory, they had 
no right to claim social or political privileges among 
us; therefore, we had a right — for you have quoted 
with approbation, that the origin of the African 
slave-trade was a " Godsend!'^ — to bring them 
into our country with a cruelty which makes hu- 
manity shudder, and to chain them in hopeless 
slavery as human property! This is logic fully 
worthy the dark cause it vainly attempts to de- 
fend; and you will have a thousand reasons for 
thankfulness if it does not throw its sable shadows 
over your reputation as a Christian philosopher and 
divine. 

You aggravate the fallacy of your defense of 
slavery by attempting to ignore the positive dis- 
tinction between absolute and perpetual slavery, 
and social equahty, and political sovereignty. 
Your whole process of argumentation assumes that 
there is no medium or middle ground between 
these two extremes. By your logic they must 
either \)v absolute slaves or political sovereigns. 
But as error is always blind, and in the end gen- 
erally contradicts itself, so you have given a pretty 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 163 

fair specimen. You say, " It is the proud boast of 
all our native citizens that they have always lived 
under a free government; and yet they were 
brought up to the age of twenty-one under a pure 
despotism." (Page 128.) Now, although it is 
not true, and no one acquainted with the facts, 
unless his judgment is perverted by prejudice 
or interest, who believes a word of it, that we are 
"brought up" in the domestic relations — as has 
been clearly shown — "under a pure despotism," or 
under a despotism of any kind, yet it is as true 
as the sun shining in the heavens, that the free 
native citizens of this republic were "brought up 
to the age of twenty-one" the free children of free 
parents, under a system of government which 
neither degraded them to the condition of slaves 
nor elevated them to political sovereignty, but 
that protected them in the enjoyment of liberty, 
against the power of all men to own them as 
"chattels," or to throw them into the market as 
merchandise ; and that secured to them the right 
to acquire an education, read the word of God, and 
to use all the means that divine Wisdom has or- 
dained for the development and perfecting of their 
whole humanity. And yet, sir, according to the 
depraved teachings of the slavery system, there is 
no middle ground or medium between men being 
slaves — chattels in the hands of their owners — or 



164 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

political sovereigns! Dear Doctor, have you no 
fears that men of intelligence will hold your work 
ill contempt for its carelessness in overlooking 
these facts, or, for what is much worse, a design to 
conceal them as necessary to make out a show of 
defense of the monstrous system of involuntary, 
perpetual slavery? Grant the slaves similar privi- 
leges and rights — equally removed from slavery 
and from political sovereignty — with those of free 
minors, and it will not only terminate the injustice 
of slavery, but, in like manner, they will become 
enlightened, elevated, and prepared for the privi- 
leges, responsibilities, and usefulness of free men. 
And I may add that, for withholding those rights 
and privileges. Heaven has a controversy with this 
nation which is rapidly approaching a crisis; and 
without deep repentance and thorough restitution, 
the chastisement will be equal to the crime. 

In a course of false argumentation, one absurd- 
ity frequently prepares the way or creates the ne- 
cessity for another. As a justification for holding 
in perpetual degradation the enslaved milhons in 
the south, you say, *^They are not only uncivilized, 
but are now in a position to exert an evil influ- 
ence, which, in a separate state, they could not do, 
although they might dwell upon our borders. 
. . . Hence, the demands of their position 
must be met by laws appropriate to an uncivilized 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 165 

people." (Pages 126, 127.) That is, 1. They 
were perfectly harmless to us before they were 
brought into our midst. 2. We brought them 
among us, by cruelty and violence, contrary to 
their will. 3. Though they are among "the most 
docile and submissive portion of our race," and 
have never forfeited their liberty by crime, yet, if 
free, they "might exert an evil influence" — they 
might do wrong, they might commit crime. 4. 
Therefore, we will withhold from them the right to 
learn to read the Bible, and also the common 
means of civilization ; will prejudge them as guilty 
before any offense is committed, and sentence them, 
and their equally-innocent posterity after them, to 
the punishment and degradation of perpetual, ab- 
solute slavery! What a mockery of justice!! 
What an outrage on humanity, and an insult to 
common-sense!!! The logic, morals, and justice 
would be equally sound that would send the Rev. 
W. A. Smith, D. D., and his plain reviewer, to the 
state-prison for life, on the assumption that if not 
in the penitentiary, "we are in a position that we 
might exert an evil influence" by committing 
murder. slavery, how thou dost degrade even 
those who attempt to defend thee ! One remark 
more and I will detain you no longer with this 
letter. 

Your real friends, Doctor, can but regret that 



166 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

you should come down from the dignity of a 
Christian philosopher and doctor of divinity, to 
fling a meer at the "managers of looms, spindles, 
and other machinery" — page 125 — a class of 
community constituting the bone and sinew of 
civilization and of the civilized world: and with- 
out whose labor and skill you would be performing 
the duties of your various offices of scholar, phi- 
losopher, and divine in a state of nudity^ or only 
clothed in skins ! But those you attempt to Bting 
will scarcely feel the pain; they may, however, 
have some temptation to treat such impotent 
wrath with contempt, knowing that it is perfectly 
harmless to all except its author. 

Hoping to address you again, with but httle 
delay, on other topics in your lectures, I remain, 
as ever, your personal friend, 

J. H. P. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 167 



LETTER YIII. 

THE ASSUMPTION THAT BECAUSE GODSANC- 
TIONS CIVIL GOVERNMENT HE SANC- 
TIONS SLAVERY, EXPOSED. 

God sanctions human governments, and human governments sanc- 
tion slavery ; therefore God sanctions slavery — The absurdity ex- 
posed — The true state of the case — Patriarchal slavery considered — 
Slavery among the Jews in the days of the Savior examined — The 
supposed allusions to slavery among the Jews in the parables and 
discourses of the Savior — Though slaves are not literally "brutes," 
the slave laws treat them all as property. 

Rev. W. a. Smith, D. D.: Dear Doctor, — Your 
sixth lecture claims to be "The abstract princi- 
ple OF SLAVERY DISCUSSED ON SCRIPTURE GROUNDS, 
AND MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLE EXAIkl- 

INED." I will not conceal the fact that, from your 
acknowledged abilities, ripe scholarship, and ardent 
zeal in the support of a system which holds mill- 
ions of human beings and their posterity in per- 
petual bondage as chattels, I expected a logical, 
lucid, methodical, and masterly defense from your 
pen; but so far I have been sadly disappointed, 
and particularly in this lecture on the "Scripture 
grounds" of this grave question. It is but little 

more than a repetition of what you have reiterated 
15 



168 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

in your previous lectures; consequently. I have al- 
ready brought to light and refuted most of its 
errors and absurdities. I will, however, notice it 
somewhat in form, though at the risk of being 
charged with following your example in repetition. 
1. Your first general argument is fully worthy 
the cause you try to sustain. "Do the Scriptures 
sanction government?" you inquire, and answer, 
" That the Bible itself is only a system of govern- 
ment, will not be disputed." . . . "Moreover, 
it sanctions civil government in most express 
terms: 'Let every soul be subject unto the higher 
powers.' . . . This was an injunction to obey 
Cresar's government. In that government it is 
well known the slavery element greatly predom- 
inated; but little room w\as left for the exercise of 
self-control; political sovereignty being denied to 
the people. In declaring government, even in this 
extreme form of controlling the wills of men, to 
be his appointment, God established the lyrindph 
as in itself rigliV (Page 135.) Your argument 
then in form is : God appointed and approved the 
principle of Caesar's government "as in itself 
right." But Cesar's government in principle 
maintained the system of slavery in "its extreme 
form." Therefore God approves of the system in 
this extreme form, and, of course, the Scriptures 
sustain slavery — American slavery. Now, you 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 169 

must mean that, or you have written nonsense; 
for, if we suppose the contrary of either of the 
propositions, or the conclusion, or all of them to- 
gether, what you have said has no more to do with 
your subject than it has with the geology of the 
moon. An argument pretending to support a 
righteous system, but that will, with equal force, 
conclude in support of the vilest crimes that men 
can perpetrate, deserves no formal notice. The 
government of Ca3sar not only supported the 
principle and practice of slavery, but sustained the 
hiring of professional torturers to torment and 
torture the slaves, and also compelled them to 
fight with wild beasts, threw them to beasts of 
prey to be devoured, authorized murder and idol- 
atry in all its corruptions, and almost every other 
vice and crime that corrupt human nature could 
perpetrate. But, according to your logic, God ap- 
pointed and approved Csesar's government; there- 
fore, God and the Bible sanctioned all these abom- 
inations ! 1 

The conclusion is precisely as logically sound in 
this case as in that of slavery, and to suppose 
either is little less than blasphemy. Although 
God recognizes the principle of civil government 
among men, he neither appoints nor sanctions 
wicked and oppressive governments or rulers. He 
tolerates them just as he does wicked men, till 



170 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

they are either reformed by his truth and justice, 
or destroyed by his judgments. In the case you 
have cited, from Romans xiii, 1-7 — the strongest 
case probably in the Bible — this subject is dis- 
tinctly guarded, and the governments he sanctions 
clearly specified. "The powers that be are or- 
dained of God." For what purpose? "For ru- 
lers are not a terror to good works, but to the 
evil." . . . "Do that which is good, and thou 
shalt have praise of the same; for he is the min- 
ister of God to thee for good;" "Render, there- 
fore, trihide, custom, or honor, to all to whom 
either is due." God sanctions governments and 
rulers when, and just so far as, they are a terror 
to evil-doers, and a praise and protection to those 
who do good; but the heaviest judgments are de- 
nounced against them when they are a terror to 
those who do good, and protect and patronize the 
evil-doers. On the principle that Christians are 
not to render evil for evil, and, " if it be possible, 
as much as lieth in them, to live peaceably with 
all men," God enjoins it upon them to submit to 
civil governments, though in their general char- 
acter wicked, just so far as they can do it without 
defiling their consciences and no farther; and to 
bear with Christian patience the evils to which they 
may be subjected, till those wicked governments 
are reformed, or removed, and others established. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 171 

The martyrdom of the inspired apostles is a lucid, 
practical comment on this subject. Paul, who en- 
joined submission "to the powers that be," while 
they were "a terror to evil," himself suffered mar- 
tyrdom under "Caesar's government" rather than 
submit to it wherein it was wicked, or to sin 
against his conscience. Till you can prove that 
God approved and appointed the principle of all 
the idolatry, corruption, and crimes, and even the 
murder of his own apostles and saints under 
"Caesar's government," you can not even torture 
this text into the support of either Eoman or 
American slavery. 2. Your cold, unscriptural com- 
ment on "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self," and, "therefore, do unto others as you would 
have them do unto you," has already been ex- 
amined and refuted. It is there shown that you 
have either to concede that you have not given 
the meaning of the text, or to exclude benevolence 
from the Gospel of Christ — either of which must 
be an incurable calamity to your cause. I will, 
however, add a further remark here. The context 
is frequently the best, and, indeed, the true com- 
ment or explanation of the text. Such is the 
fact in this case. In the context the Savior has 
given a twofold illustration of that broad benevo- 
lence implied in this universal rule of Christian 
action. 



172 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

1. That benevolence, which God has implanted 
in the bosoms of parents for their children. " If a 
son ask bread, or a fish, of his parent, will he give 
him a stone, or a serpent?" The parental ex- 
perience of mankind forbids it. And why? be- 
cause God has established the great principle of 
benevolence in the hearts of parents, not merely 
to meet the wants of their children, on the ground 
of sheer justice, but where justice does not forbid, 
to pour upon them all the benefits benevolence can 
invent. 2. If parents thus delight in imparting 
blessings to their children, "how much more shall 
your Father, which is in heaven, give good things 
to them that ask him'/' "Therefore," in the light 
of these examples — human and divine — of uni- 
versal practical benevolence, in all cases where 
justice does not forbid, "all things whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them; for this is the law and the prophets." The 
application of this rule as Christ designed it, 
namely, as parents love and treat their ollspring, 
and as God does his children, would sweep the 
curse of slavery from the globe in an hour! 3. 
Your third position has much less of argument or 
proof than of mere dogmatism. You assert that 
"Abraham, Lot, and others held them [slaves] in 
large numbers;" . . . "That the Jews brought 
slaves with them from Egypt;" and "that the 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 173 

tenth article of the Decalogue provides to protect 
"the right of property in slaves" — page 139 — 
that "the Savior has recognized this law, as it 
was originally designed to be, of universal obliga- 
tion and force" — page 140 — and that "the law 
further provided for domestic slavery in perpetu- 
ity '' (Page 141.) Of the Jews you say, "At 
no period of their history were they without do- 
mestic slaves; and, when the Savior dwelt among 
them, the whole land was filled with such slaves;" 
. . . and that " the hospitalities of every fam- 
ily of which he partook, were probably ministered 
to him more or less by domestic slaves" — page 
143 — "And certain it is, that this relation is 
made the subject of some of his most eloquent 
allusions, and the basis of his most instructive 
parables." Matthew xxiii, 10; Mark x, 17; Mat- 
thew vi, 24; xiii, 24-28; xxi; xxv. (Page 144.) 
Your argument and conclusion from all this is: 
"If this be true, it is really passing strange that 
Jehovah himself should provide, in the organic law 
of the Jewish commonwealth, for the working of a 
system of domestic slavery, and, by a series of 
la^YS drawn up under this constitution, set such a 
system in actual operation; and that the Savior of 
mankind should also give, according to every 
legitimate interpretation that can be put either 
upon his language or his conduct, his unquahfied 



174 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

approbation to that which was so flatly opposed to 
all his doctrine ! It is saying but little of all this 
to affirm that it is grossly absurd ! It can appeal 
to no doctrine that we are aware of for its defense, 
unless it be the kindred absurdity that the will of 
God is not the rule of right, in this sense, that it al- 
ways conforms to that which, in itself is inghtj that 
is, good ; but that it is the rule of right in this other 
sense, that it is absolutely, in itself, the only rule 
of right; and that, in the case under consideration, 
domestic slavery was right for the Jews, because 
God so willed it; but the same thing in principle, 
under similar circumstances, would be wrong for 
any other people, because in regard to them God 
had willed differently : thus assigning to Deity the 
power to make the tvrong the right, and the right the 
wrong r (Page 145.) I have here also allowed you 
to speak at length, that there may be no mistake 
as to your views on this subject; and, doubtless, 
you have given it all the plausibility that the case 
will admit of Now, your whole process of argu- 
mentation by which you reach your conclusion is 
^mere "begging the question." You have con- 
ceded in terms, what, however, I have clearly 
proved, and what you could not deny without do- 
ing yourself injustice as a scholar, namely, that the 
term in the Hebrew of the Old, and the Greek of 
the New Testament Scriptures, translated in our 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 175 



English version servant, is generic. You say, 
"The term servant is the generic form, and evi- 
dently means, a person who is controlled by the will 
of another." (Page 142.) Now, it has already been 
clearly evinced that whatever may have been the 
classical meaning, or use of those terms, the uni- 
versal Bible use, as translated servant, is generic, 
and necessarily implies species, as there can not be 
a genus without species, nor species without genus. 
I have also shown in the light of unquestionable 
facts, that slavery in general, and American slav- 
ery in particular, is a species belonging to the 
genus servant; and that it differs from all other 
species of servitude recognized with approbation 
in the holy Scriptures. And, moreover, that this 
specific, essential, and absolute difference consists 
in the/«c2^ that masters have an absolute and per- 
petual right of property in the persons— soul, 
body, and spirit— the entire humanity— of the 
slaves, and their posterity after them; while the 
specific, essential characteristic of aU other species 
of servitude, or subordination, known and approved 
by the Bible, under the genus servant, absolutely 
excludes this property element. So demonstrably 
true is this, that, if you deprive slavery^ of this 
right of property principle, you destroy it in an 
instant; or if you apply this principle to other 
species of subordination, or servants, you immedi- 



176 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

ately rob millions of their liberty, as free men, and 
put them under the laws of property as chattels. 
The presence of this principle in the one case is 
its only life ; in the others their certain death ! With 
your memory refreshed on these facts, I repeat, 
you have only begged the question ; for you have 
not even attempted, in a solitary instance, to prove 
that the servitude in the cases you have quoted 
from Scripture belonged to the species in which 
this property element, as "chattels in the hands 
of their owners," is its only life and being, but in 
every case you have assumed that such is the 
fact; while a mere glance at those Scriptures will 
demonstrate the falsity and absurdity of the as- 
sumption. 

I will only make a passing remark here on the 
case of "Abraham, Lot, and others," as that will 
be attended to in a subsequent letter. My denial 
that the Hebrews brought slaves, as chattels, with 
them out of Egypt is worth just as much as your 
affirmation. And is it not truly a grand concep- 
tion, that the Hebrews, in their miraculous escape 
from slavery, amidst the consuming fires of God's 
judgments upon Egypt for the sin of slaveholdingy 
and their obstinate resistance of emandimtioii, 
should themselves be guilty of the same crime, by 
bringing with them from the place of their own 
bondage and degradation a "multitude of slaves 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 177 

as chattels in the hands of their owners?" A 
worse species of slavery than themselves endured 
in Egypt 1 Now, Doctor, if they did 7iot bring 
slaves as chattels with them from Egypt, your as- 
sumption is preposterously false; if they did^ you 
have yourself solved one of the monster difficulties 
that you have attempted to throw in the way of 
those who oppose your system; namely, "that the 
will of God can not make the right to be the 
wrong, and the wrong to be the right." Here," ac- 
cording to fact, it was tvrong for the Egyptians to 
hold slaves; and, according to your assumption, it 
was right for the Hebrews. On the same principle 
that, by the will of God, it was wrong for the 
Egyptians to hold slaves, but right for the He- 
brews to hold them, it may have been right for the 
Hebrews — which, however, I deny, that they ever 
held slaves as chattels with the approbation of God; 
])ut wrong for Christians. You can take either 
position as may best suit your convenience; but I 
repeat the denial, and demand the proof, that God 
ever sanctioned, as morally right, slavery in its 
chattel and property sense, either among heath- 
ens, Hebrews, or Christians. Heaven's frowns and 
curse hang over the whole system ! 

The same facts and conclusions apply to your 
assertion that the Jews were a " nation of slave- 
holders" in the days of the incarnation of the Sav- 



178 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

ior, and that he sanctioned the system of slavery. 
For if the ivill of God made it a national crime 
deserving and receiving the most exemplary pun- 
ishments in the Egyptians, but a national virtue, 
meriting and receiving the sanction of the Son of 
God, the same sovereign tvill can make it a crime, 
instead of a virtue, in every nation on earth. In 
the light of these facts, your assumption that the 
"hospitalities of every family of which the Savior 
partook, were probably ministered to him by domes- 
tic slaves," is a bold assertion, which merits no 
respectful notice whatever. You are entirely "cer- 
tain" that the relation of master— owner— and 
slaves— property— "is made the subject of some 
of the most eloquent allusions, and the basis of 
some of the most instructive parables " of the Sav- 
ior; consequently, the system has the sanction of 
the divine Redeemer. In this you assume, I. 
That master means legal owner in the sense which 
gives absolute right of property, and that servant is 
equivalent to property in the sense of chattels. 2. 
That the Savior sanctioned, and stamped with Di- 
vme approbation, whatever he made the "basis of 
a parable," or "aUuded to for illustration." To 
suppose the contrary of these assumptions, is 
utterly to ruin your whole argument here. What 
are the facts? The Savior made the cases of the 
toohsh virgins," the "rich man who fared sump- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 179 

tuously" and went to hell, the "prodigal son/' 
with numerous others, the "basis of instructive 
parables;" and alluded to the "man who built his 
house upon the sand," the "unjust judge," and 
"the children of this world," to illustrate import- 
ant truths, principles, and duties. But did he 
thereby sanction all, or any of these cases? The 
supposition would not only be false, but a slander 
upon the Divine character. Did he use the terms 
master and servant as equivalent to oivner and 
property^ That he did is absolutely essential to 
your cause. 

Terms that are synonymous are convertible, 
and either may be used and the sense will be pre- 
cisely the same. Try this rule on some of your 
quotations. You say, "God has provided to pro- 
tect the right of property in the slave;' and I have 
demonstrated that such right can have no exist- 
ence only in the persons — soul and body — of the 
slaves. Thus, Matthew xxiii, 10, would read: 
"Neither be ye called oivner s^ for one is your 
owner, even Christ;" and, of necessity, ye are 
chattels in your owner's hands. Mark x, 17 : " Good 
oivner, what shall I, your chattel, do that your chat- 
tel may inherit eternal life?" Matthew vi, 24: 
"No property can serve two oivners.'" Matthew 
xiii, 24-28: "So the chattel came and said to its 
oivner f I . . . "the ow7ter said to the prop- 



180 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

erty, an enemy hath done this," etc. Matthew 
xxi : To substitute jyi^operty in the place of servant, 
in the parable of the vineyard, is so "grossly ab- 
surd" that I will not annoy you by putting it on 
paper; and yet your argument is nonsense if it 
will not bear this interchange of terms. You ap- 
pear to have been forgetful of your reputation as 
a logician and divine, when you quote Matthew 
XXV to prove the right of property, by Divine 
authority, in the persons of slaves. I would 
gladly spare you^ if I could, and do justice to the 
subject, but truth and righteousness require that 
such unwarrantable liberties with the word of life, 
to -sustain the odious system of slavery, should be 
exposed. " The kingdom of heaven is as an oiune^^ 
traveling into a flir country, who called his own 
property, and delivered unto }\\& property his goods, 
or property; and unto one property he gave five 
talents, to another property two, and to another 
property one; to ^y^xy property according to its 
several abihty. . . . Then the property that 
had received five talents went and traded with the 
same and made other five talents. Likewise the 
property that had received two, it also gained 
other two. But the property that had received 
one went and digged in the earth and hid its 
oioner'8 money. . . . After a long time the 
oimer of these properties cometh, and reckoneth 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 181 

with those iiroperties. ... So the property 
that had received five talents brought five talents 
more. . . . His oiune}' said. Well done, good 
and faithfiil property, thou hast been faithful, . 
. . enter into the joy of thy oivnerP The same 
result followed in the case of the property that 
had received two; but to the property that had re- 
ceived one, "its oiimer said, Thou wicked and sloth- 
ful property, . . . take the talent from it and 
give it to the property that hath ten talents, . . . 
and east the unMthful property into outer dark- 
ness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of 
teeth." What a silly fellow that oimier was! 
Why did he not take him to the slave-marJcet and 
sell him at auction? He might have got some- 
thing for him, and any price would have been bet- 
ter than to have destroyed the lazy rascal ! 

Now, sir, ludicrous as your doctrines make the 
pure word of God, there is no escape for you, but 
either to admit that servant, in the text, does not 
mean slave, or to deny that slave implies the right 
of property in the person — soul, body, and spirit — 
of the slave. And in either case you will contra- 
dict yourself and your assumptions, or the slave 
laws and the universal practice of the south, and 
will virtually abandon the system. Divested of 
the perversions of slavery, this parable abounds 
with instruction. We have the distinct idea of 



182 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

what is transpiring every day — in states where 
slavery is an abhorrence to the whole community — 
of men of capital fm^nishing others with means on 
mutual agreement, and both parties sharing the 
results — the profits. In those business relations, 
the capitalists are relatively the superiors, and the 
operatives relatively the subordinates, but both 
equally free, and their interests reciprocal. The 
whole beautifully illustrates the gifts and grace of 
God and their improvement by men, by which the 
latter are saved and the former glorified. 0, 
slavery, how base thou art, for seducing the manly 
talents of even Dr. Smith into the humiliating 
work of thy defense!! For your comfort, how- 
ever. Doctor, I will say that in examining the "mis- 
conceptions, or misrepresentations" of Wayland, 
Channing, Whewell, and others, you triumphantly 
prove that "the constitution of the human mind 
is in flat contradiction to the idea of the absorp- 
tion of the will, the conscience, and the under- 
standing of one man into the personality of an- 
other." You also demonstrate that "Paul and 
Peter, who wrote [you say, though some are silly 
enough to doubt it] with special allusion to slaves 
under these laws, [the Roman and Grecian codes,] 
so far from regarding this personality as lost and 
swallowed up in the humanity of the masters, ex- 
pressly assumed their personality and responsi- 



AND PKAGTICE OF SLAVERY. 183 

bility." (Page 148.) You have made it perfectly 
clear that the dirty slaves are not absorbed, or 
swallowed up in the clean, nice persons of their 
masters — so far from it, that while their tidy mas- 
ters are luxuriating in the splendid mansion, the 
slaves are toiling in the cotton, sugar, rice, or 
tobacco fields, under the "patriarchal" watch-care 
of a "steward," overseer, or driver; and, more- 
over, you have made it plain, no doubt to your 
own mind and the minds of the friends of the sys- 
tem, that if they do not behave themselves right 
they ought to be flogged; for "the ruler beareth 
not the sword in vain." And, furthermore, who- 
ever saw a master bleeding, or weeping, or heard 
him sighing, or groaning in pain after his unruly 
chattels had been thoroughly drubbed? The idea 
is preposterous, and yet it would be physically and 
"logically" true if the "personality of the slave 
was absorbed in the humanity of the owner." 
And have not these doctors and professors sense 
enough to know that, if there was any truth in 
this "absorption" doctrine, the masters would be- 
gin to turn a little dark by this time, having ab- 
sorbed so much of that color from their slave- 
property? and are they so stupid as to have 
overlooked the fact that, from the faded black of 
thousands of the slaves, the indications are pretty 

clear that if there is really any process of "absorp- 
16 



184 KEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

tion" going on, it is, in fact, in the other direction? 
and that it is much more Kkely the masters will be 
"absorbed" in the persons of the slaves, than that 
the slaves will be absorbed in the humanity of 
their masters? Will not these naughty doctors 
and professors conduct themselves with a Httle 
more propriety hereafter, since they have been so 
well scourged ? 

Still further, you have been equally successful 
in demonstrating that "slaves are not brutes," 
that is, they are not liUraUy horses, cattle, and 
hogs, but that they are literally^ and in fact, men, 
women, and children, and the Bible says they are 
of the same blood with Dr. Smith and his reviewer, 
and all other men, for "of one blood he made all 
flesh that dwelleth upon the whole earth." But 
for a small defect or two, your victory over these 
troublesome doctors and professors would be com- 
plete, and might teach them a lesson they would 
not forget for at least a week. The first particular 
I notice is, you have most eloquently refuted what 
no man ever believed or taught; namely, that the 
slaves are //^er«% '•' absorbed'' and " siv allow ed iq:)''^ 
in the literal "humanity''' of their masters. 

Another defect is, you have either carelessly 
overlooked or studiously avoided dropping a word 
in regard to how the slave code in the south views 
and treats this question. I believe these slave 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 185 

laws are frequently troublesome "tell-tales" to 
those doctors of divinity who attempt to defend 
the system of slavery. Suppose, Doctor, that 
some "rude fellow of the baser sort" were wick- 
edly to break an arm, put out an eye, or other- 
wise disable your slave for labor, and the offender 
were prosecuted for damages, would reparation be 
made to you as owner, or to the slave as sufferer? 
These talkative slave laws tell us that you would 
get paid for an arm or an eye, and not the slave, 
precisely as you would recover damages for injuries 
done to an ox or a mule! If this is not an "ab- 
sorption," Hterally, of the person of the slave into 
the literal " humanity of the master," it is a literal 
absorption and swallowing up of the natural, just, 
and equitable rigliU of the slave into the unright- 
eous usurpation of the owner. 

And, as to slaves being "brutes," you have 
proved, and every body knows, they are men; and 
it is equally notorious, though you have cautiously 
abstained from hinting the fact, that the slave laws 
of the south recognize them as property just as 
they recognize "brutes" as property, and com- 
mercially treat slaves and brutes precisely alike. 
They are executed, sold at auction, paid on debts, 
mortgaged, and given away, and worked wholly for 
the benefit of others just as "brutes" are. True, 
they are in many respects held accountable to laws 



186 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

as men, while they are treated as chattels in the 
hands of their owners. And this fact is another 
demonstration of the injustice and barbarism of 
the system of slavery. 

Your conclusion, up to this point in your lec- 
tures, "that the abstract principle of the institu- 
tion of slavery and the principles of natural rights 
coincide, and that both have the unqualified appro- 
bation of holy Scriptures," has been proved to be 
absolutely erroneous, and, in many respects, in- 
tensely preposterous. 

I have presented facts and argument showing 
that what you call the "philosophy of the princi- 
ple of slavery" is a sheer fallacy, a mere farce; 
your theory of natural rights worse than a mere 
caricature ; and that holy Scripture abhors and de- 
nounces its anathemas against the whole system 
of slavery and human oppression in whatever form 
it may be found; consequently, your sweeping 
conclusion has no more strength or force than the 
"baseless fabric of a vision." 

Intending soon to resume the grave question at 
issue between us, I remain, as ever, your friend, 

J. H. P. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 187 



LETTER IX. 

SLAVERY LEGALIZED BY THE LENGTH OF 

TIME IT HAS EXISTED IN THE 

COUNTRY EXPOSED. 

Slavery legalized and rendered morally right by the length of time 
which has elapsed since its introduction into this country — The 
utter falsity of the position exposed — No analogy between robbing 
others of their lands, and robbing men of their liberty — Time may 
legalize land titles, but can never give one man the right of prop- 
erty in another — The African slave-trade was originated and sus- 
tained by public opinion in Great Britain and America, therefore 
it was morally right — On this principle every practice, however 
vile and corrupt, that public opinion sustains is morally right — 
The idea that the African slave-trade was a " missionary God- 
send" intensely absurd. 

Rev. W. a. Smith, D. D., — Your seventh lec- 
ture, the character of which is not very clearly in- 
dicated by its title, "The Institution of Domestic 
Slavery," is something of a curiosity, and de- 
serves some attention. It is upon the whole a 
very lame, if not also, in some respects, blind at- 
tempt to justify slavery on the ground of the 
length of time which has elapsed since its intro- 
duction into this country, and a defense of the 
origin of the African slave-trade ! You repeat the 
fallacy which I have exposed more than once, that 



188 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

there is no medium between absolute and perpet- 
ual slavery and political sovereignty^ and then 
boast that "you are entitled to the full benefit of 
the presumption in argument." This claim rests 
wholly upon the assumption that you have estab- 
lished all your previous positions; but it has been 
evinced, with a force that your logic can not refute 
in an age, that the vital points on which you rely 
for the support of slavery are incurably erroneous, 
and many of them contradictory and absurd. T 
am gratified, however, that you have "waxed 
warm" in this lecture, and, of course, I may imi- 
tate your example in reviewing you. The main 
proposition is, that slavery — "American slavery as 
it is, and as it should be perpetuated — is right and 
just on account of the length of time it has ex- 
isted in this country." You state the objections 
to tills assumption thus: "Slave property was 
originally acquired by robbery and violence, and, 
therefore, can never become lawful property ;" . 
. . "an act of robbery can never extinguish the 
original right of the person robbed, or confer 
original title upon the robber." To this you re- 
ply, "The doctrine assumed in this argument is,' 
that possessions unjustly acquired originally, can 
never become legal possessions; . . . this 
doctrine in its application to the African is, that 
they were stolen while in a state of freedom, and 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 189 

reduced to a state of slavery. But we deny both 
the doctrine and the hypothetical assumption on 
ivhich it is based. 

^•1. If this doctrine be true, it will follow that all 
wrong is without any remedy, except in the few 
cases in which things may be restored to their 
original state. This would be a deplorable state 
of things indeed. It would work special disaster 
to our northern brethren." (Pages 159, 160.) 
Because, you say, the " Indians were the original 
and rightful owners of this whole country," conse- 
quently the right of soil was unjustly acquired; 
and if time and a change of circumstances will not 
rectify and legalize an origin^d wrong the people 
of this republic, and especially the "northern 
brethren," have no just right to the American 
soil. You proceed, "The great wealth of the 
northern states can be regarded only as so much 
dishonest gain ! Really, it is time they were look- 
ing to the duty of restitution ! But the disaster 
of this doctrine does not exhaust itself with our 
northern brethren. The Norman conquest of 
Great Britain is that by which all the land-titles 
of England are held to the present day, . . . 
Now, it is well known that the Norman conquest 
was the most lawless piece of injustice and butch- 
ery, the record of which ever disgraced the pages 
of human history ! Upon the basis of the doc- 



190 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

trine in question, it is equally certain that there 
is scarcely an honest shilling in all England. 
Nor is this all; the present titles of all Europe, 
Asia, and northern Africa are traceable, more or 
less remotely, to a source equally cruel and un- 
just! Thus there is an end pretty much to 
all honesty as to the possessions of the civihzed 
world ! Surely, the absurdity of this conclusion is 
sufficient to invalidate the soundness of the doc- 
trine from which it arises." (Pages 161, 162.) 

You say those wrongs were generally commit- 
ted "by the heads of governments," and the 
original parties having passed away, the "original 
wrong was ultimately placed beyond all rem- 
edy. ... In this state of things the 
question of title, V/ho shall own these lands ? be- 
comes an original question. And in this state of 
the case the simple fact of present possession — 
there being no one to claim antecedent posses- 
sion — according to the fundamental beHef of man- 
kind, confers moral title, and should therefore be 
legal." (Page 163.) Upon this principle you 
charitably add, "We have no difficulty in vindica- 
ting the honesty of the descendants of the Puri- 
tans, or the land-titles of the civilized world, or 
the thousand other titles which are equally in- 
volved by the absurd doctrine under consideration. 
Nor do we find any difficulty in allowing them a 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 191 

just title to all the proceeds of the African traffic, 
even though it should be conceded that their fore- 
fathers were, as they characterize them, a set of 
mere man-stealers T (Page 164.) As this as- 
pect of the question is of the highest moral and 
practical importance, I have given your argument 
and conclusion at length, desiring that you should 
speak for yourself. Before I proceed to examine 
them, allow me. Doctor, to suggest, by the way, 
that if all the "live Yankees" of those "northern 
brethren" down east — the "descendants of the 
Puritans" — are not duly thankful, and do not prop- 
erly appreciate your kindness in giving them a 
''quit claim^' to all their lands and the "proceeds 
of the African traffic," they ought to be scourged 
again "within an inch of their lives!" 

But to return to the question : If the system of 
perpetual, absolute slavery is not sustained by this 
process, its case will be well-nigh hopeless; for you 
have succeeded full as well on this point as you 
did in demonstrating that the person of the slave 
is not literally absorled in the liumanity of the 
master. But your triumph in this case, as it was 
in the other, is not without its troubles. Here, 
again, your logic is either blind, or has most care- 
lessly blundered, or has lost all self-respect ! The 
whole strength of your argument and position here 
is — "although the lands referred to were wrested 

17 



192 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

from their original and rightful owners by violence 
and robbery, time and circumstances have invested 
a ^ moral and legal' title in the descendants of 
the original robbers, such descendants being now 
in the possession of the lands; 'there being no one 
to claim antecedent possession, according to the fiui' 
damenial helief of manldnd time confers mor^il 
TITLE.' Consequently, admitting the fact that the 
Africans were brought here by violence and rob- 
bery, the original parties being dead, time and cir- 
cumstances have invested those who are now in 
possession of them as slaves with a ^ moral and le- 
gal' title — 'there heing no one to claim antecedent 
possession.'' " 

The above is your argument in all its force, or 
what you have written on the subject is a ludicrous 
farce! 1. You have real estate — nearly all the 
lands in Asia, Africa, Europe, and America — in 
the premises, and personal property — human be- 
ings claimed as slaves — "chattels in the hands of 
their owners" — in the conclusion! Now, unless 
you can demonstrate, what is literally impossible, 
that the same principles and rules in morals, law, 
and logic, will apply with equal justice io both those 
objects — land and human beings — your argument 
is pure sophistry! 2. You have inanimate matter, 
which has no rights whatever, in the premises; and 
intelligent human beings, who have vast and import- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 193 

ant riglits^ in the conclusion; not only sophistical 
but grossly absurd ! ! 3. You assume that as there 
are only two parties claiming possession in regard 
to those lands, the same is true in the case of 
slaves. This is positively false ! ! ! To save your 
argument, not to say your reputation as a logician, 
you must show, with a clearness equal to the in- 
terests involved, that there is such an analogy be- 
tween the case of lands and that of men in bond- 
age; that what may be in truth affirmed of one, 
when the question of human lights is involved, 
may logically and truthfully be affirmed of the 
other. Human rights are natural, moral, and so- 
cial, and have relation to the laws and government 
of God, and to the duties and interests of this and 
the future world. You have, then, either to aban- 
don this boasted claim in favor of slavery, or to 
demonstrate, either that lands have the same in- 
telhgence, natural, moral, and social rights, and 
sustain the same relations to the government of 
God, and to the duties and interests of time and 
eternity, that belong to, and that characterize 
men when claimed as slaves; or, that men in such 
condition have no more intelligence, natural, moral, 
and social rights, and sustain no other relations to 
the Divine government, and the duties and inter- 
ests of the present and future world, than the un- 
conscious and passive earth! To affirm either 



194 EEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

would be false and profane. Were not the claims 
of truth and justice more imperative than the sym- 
pathies of personal friendship, I would not expose 
the absurdities in the arguments of one for whose 
reputation I entertain a high regard. But justice 
requires that this favorite fallacy in defense of 
slavery should be further exposed till it is driven 
out of the community. 

In all your eloquent discourse on "land-titles" 
you have supposed only two parties — the original 
oitmers, and those 2vIio rohhcd them of their rightful 
possessions; while, as matter of fact, the object 
claimed, being inanimate matter, could have no 
rights, nor, by any possibility, lose or svj^er any 
thing whatever. But are those the facts in regard 
to slaves? Precisely the opposite, and that, too, 
by the appointment and authority of God. For I 
have shown in my former letters that, from every 
relation estabhshed, and every form of government 
sanctioned by him, he has excluded the principle 
of slavery, and has recognized the inteUigence, 
duties, rights, and interests of man. Hence the 
egregious fallacy in assuming that in the case of 
slavery there are only two parties, and that the 
object claimed — the slave — has no original rights, 
and has nothing to lose or suffer. The cases are 
perfectly dissimilar; in the case of lands, the ob- 
ject claimed has no rights and can lose nothing. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 195 

In that of slaves, the object claimed is an intelli- 
gent subject of God's moral government, invested 
with natural and moral rights, and sustaining 
sacred relations to God, his law, and the changeless 
interests of eternity; and has, as a third party, a 
claim to himself j founded in the principles of eternal 
justice against the claims of all first and second 
parties whatever. The first claim set up by the 
first man for the right of property in his person, 
no matter by whom, or on what grounds, was in 
itself a LIE ; and every step in prosecuting it by 
reducing its victim to slavery was a diabolical out- 
rage upon justice, the constitution and rights of 
man, and the relations and order ordained by 
Jehovah. 

It was the man alone who was robbed of his lib- 
erty — robbed of himself, his natural rights, the 
special gift of God, and thereby made a slave ; and 
no matter who committed the first offense, it was 
outrage and robbery upon the person and rights 
of the man in reducing him to a slave ; and every 
time the man changes hands as a slave the robbery 
is repeated and perpetuated. It was robbery in 
the premises, and, though it be repeated till the 
judgment trump of God arrests the outrage, it will 
still be robbery! And neither time nor circum- 
stances can change the 7noral character of slavery, 
unless God should change the whole character and 



196 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

relations of man; and also his own moral govern- 
ment, so as to release parents and children, hus- 
bands and wives, and rulers and subjects, from the 
moral obligations which he has rendered insepara- 
ble from those relations; and also release them 
from their moral obligations to "glorify him in 
their bodies and spirits which are his." If God 
should do all this, time and circumstances may 
change the character of slavery; but till then 
it must remain unchanged and an unchangeable 
robbery ! It originated in the worst forms of hu- 
man depravity, ripened into violence and robbery, 
and perpetuates its existence by the same crime. 
Time and circumstances change the moral charac- 
ter of slavery, and render injustice and robbery, 
repeated and perpetuated, morallij right and ac- 
ceptable to God, as they may legalize the title to 
lands! ! Slavery merits no better fate than to be 
rendered thus ridiculous by the impotent strug- 
gles of its admirers for its defense! When time 
and circumstances become potent enough to 
change injustice, theft, robbery, oppression, and 
cruelty, into justice, honesty, benevolence, mercy, 
and moral purity, they may change the nature of 
slavery. 

But before all that occurs you and your re- 
viewer will see the true character of slavery in the 
light of eternity; where, doubtless, you will have 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 197 

widely different views of the system from those 
you now entertain and attempt to defend. In 
view of your whole performance under this head, I 
might retort your own language to others, that it 
is a "stupid gratuity, ... of which the au- 
thor should be profoundly ashamed !" — page 170 — 
but I spare you, though not your system. I now 
follow you to the only ground on which you may 
hope to evade these consequences; namely, your 
denial that the African slave-trade commenced in 
violence and robbery. You say: "We also deny 
the hypothesis upon the basis of which this false 
doctrine has been made to apply to the Africans 
of this country; that is, we deny that African 
slavery in this country had its origin or was 
founded in cruelty and robbery." (Page 164.) 
"There is no reason to doubt the statement of 
history, that many slave-ships originally — as per- 
haps is still the case to some extent — acquired 
their cargoes, some by robbery and violence, and 
some by purchase. The sufferings of what is 
called the 'middle passage' are, no doubt, cor- 
rectly stated in history." . . . "There may 
have been cruel wrongs, and under circumstances 
of even greater aggravation than those recorded in 
history." (Page 165.) Whatever may have been 
the facts in these cases, you state that "the act- 
ors have long since gone to their account," and 



198 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

were no more the originators and authors of the 
African slave-trade than were the artisans of Bos- 
ton the founders and builders of that city. " They 
were necessary agents, and whether they performed 
their work well or otherwise does not affect the 
question as to the founders and builders of the 
African slavery in America." After stating there 
must have been a ^'potent cause for bringing the 
African into this country at all," you inquire em- 
phatically, "What, then, was this cause?" and then 
reply, "But one answer can be given to this in- 
quiry. On it there can be no division of opinion. 
It was the state of public opinion in Great Britain, 
and the state of public opinion in her colonies in 
this country at the time. This state of public 
opinion demanded their introduction and employ- 
ment as slaves, and hence they were introduced 
and so employed." (Page 16G.) "This being 
the true origin and foundation of the system, if it 
had its foundation in rohhenj and violence, it was 
because public opinion, through that long period, 
was so eminently corrupt as to set itself, dehb- 
erately and of full purpose, to work to per- 
petrate rohhery and violence, without any re- 
deeming virtue; for crimes admit of none. Was 
this so? Can we be prepared to believe it? In 
default of all history at this point to detail the 
origin and progress of public opinion on this 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 199 

subject, we are left to form our judgment from our 
knowledge of the men whom we know to have par- 
ticipated more largely than any others in directing 
pubhc opinion in their day, and to the history of 
the times in which they Hved." After stating 
that African slaves were brought into this country 
in the seventeenth century, and that the trade 
was continued "under the sanction of law till the 
years 1778 and 1808 inclusive," and that at an 
early day "public opinion was matured on this 
subject both in England and in the colonies," so 
that for a long period it sustained the practice 
of bringing slaves directly from Africa into this 
country, you add, "Now, we affirm that the posi- 
tion postulated in regard to this case is among the 
most palpable absurdities that can be conceived. 
The character of the men who controlled public 
opinion in that day, and the patriotic Christian age 
in which they lived, utterly disprove the gross as- 
sumption that they yielded themselves up to falsify 
the truth and the conscience that was in them, and 
became a mere corporation of land pirates and 
freebooters !" And to demonstrate that the men, 
whom you claim to have formed pubhc opinion on 
the slave-trade, were not a mere fiction you give 
us the following fist: In England, "James I, Crom- 
well, and William III; Burnet, Tillotson, Barrow, 
South, with Bunyan and Milton, and also Newton 



200 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

and Locke. In the colonies, during this time, 
there lived Cotton Mather, Brainerd, EUot, and 
Roger Williams; Winthrop, Sir H. Vane, and 
Sanmel Adams, with Henry, Washington, and 
Franklin." (Pages 167, 168, 169.) To sup- 
pose that "these great men, some of them em- 
inently good men," . . . "were no better 
than a horde of mountain robbers" — which must 
be the inference if they formed "public opinion," 
and "public opinion originated and founded the 
African slave-trade," and if that trade is a sys- 
tem of violence and robbery — "is the shameless 
position strangely postulated in regard to these 
men and their times ! We scruple not to affirm 
that this is more than a stupid gratuity ! It is a 
gross calumny upon humanity itself, of which the 
authors should be profoundly ashamed." (Page 
170.) 

Having now given your defense, in all its force, 
of the inhuman, horrihle slave-trade, with the 
grounds on which you rest that defense, I am 
deeply impressed that not a few will conclude, "It 
is the miserable cant of one who would storm by 
prejudice what he can not demolish by argu- 
ment." (Page 151.) You have given us, how- 
ever, inadvertently, another specimen of the true 
character of the system — savage-like, it puts its 
prisoners in front, virtually saying, " If you shoot 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 201 

US your balls must pass through your own friends; 
spare us, vile and cruel as we are, or kill your own 
children and friends!" We will see, however, 
whether the foes may not fall and the friends be 
saved. Your argument for the moral justice and 
righteous character of the African slave-trade^ rests 
wholly on the assumption that it was sustained in 
its origin and practice by "public opinion in Eng- 
land and her American colonies;" and that public 
opinion in the case was morally right and just, be- 
cause it was formed under the influence of those 
great men and their coadjutors, and that their in- 
fluence in forming public opinion was morally just 
and right, because "many of them were eminently 
good men." That this is the whole strength of 
your position in this case is easily demonstrated 
by supposing the contrary of any or all of those 
puerile assumptions. If they were not good men 
they would form a corrupt pubhc opinion; and the 
African slave-trade being originated and carried 
on under the sanction of this corrupt public opin- 
ion, would be what it was, is now, and ever must 
be, an infamous, diaboHcal, and bloody business. 
Or, if they were good men but did not form pub- 
He opinion, or if no such public opinion existed, 
the same conclusion follows, as far as your argu- 
ment is concerned. So that to break one link of 
this rickety chain will explode the whole argument. 



202 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

and give its fragments to the winds ! Doctor, did 
you write for idiots, or did you presume that men 
of intelligence would swallow your bold assump- 
tions, which have not even the down of plausibility 
to hide the nudity of their deformities! My de- 
nial of your assumptions is worth just as much as 
your unproved assertions, and leaves the subject 
just where it was before you exhausted so much 
learning and labor upon it. 

But I can not release your system on such easy 
terms. To present your argument in a more con- 
densed form: Any system or business which "pub- 
lic opinion" sustains and prosecutes, is morally 
right and just "Public opinion, in Great Britain 
and her American colonies," sustained and prose- 
cuted the African slave-trade; therefore, the Afri- 
can slave-trade is morally just and right. By this 
very convenient process you prove the godliness of 
this horrible traffic. And by the same operation 
national crimes of the most revolting character may 
find an advocate in the logic of Bev. Dr. W. A, 
Smith. For example: "Public opinion," in Great 
Britain, sustained and prosecuted the war of 1776 
against her colonies in America; "public opinion" 
sustained, carried out in practice — and still does — 
Mohammedanism and the persecution and murder 
of Christians; "public opinion" sustains and prac- 
tices the most debasing, inhuman, and cruel forms 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 203 

of idolairy throughout the heathen world: there- 
fore, the barbarous war of England upon her colo- 
nial children in America, Mohammedanism and 
heathenism, with all their moral corruptions, crimes, 
and cruelties, were, and still are, moralli) just and 
right in the sight of God and man; and, of course, 
our fathers were rebel sinners for resisting op- 
pression and seeking freedom, and we are fools for 
spending millions in sending the Bible and mis- 
sionaries to convert and save Mohammedans and 
heathens ! 

Still further: ''PuUlc ojyinmi''^ sanctioned and 
sustained Hebrew slavery in Egypt^ and of course 
it was morally just and right; and, according to 
your pro-slavery logic, divine Providence com- 
mitted an egregious blunder in breaking up that 
godly and "patriarchal" business amid the fires 
of his terrible judgments! Public opinion, the 
fluctuating offspring of the interests, prejudices, 
pride, ignorance, or depravity of men — instead of 
the infallible word of God — the moral rule of 
action and conduct., in a case involving the liberty 
and highest interests on earth and in eternity of 
milKons of mankind ! ! Will not posterity be as- 
tonished that a Protestant doctor of divinity, in 
the middle of the nineteenth century, boldly 
avowed the infidel principle, and for no other pur- 
pose than to aid in riveting faster the chains of 



204 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

slavery upon the millions of his fellow-men who 
are in bondage in this republic ? But, sir, your 
reasoning is equally false and absurd when viewed 
from another point. Suppose I allow all your 
claim for public opinion, that it sanctified and 
rendered the African slave-trade morally right and 
just; then, by logical necessity, should that pub- 
he opinion be changed and reversed, the slave- 
trade must become morally wrong and wicked. 
But public opinion in England and America has 
denounced this traffic in human beings as an out- 
rage upon justice and humanity, and an intoler- 
able curse, which should be swept from the face of 
the whole earth. These facts, on your theory, in- 
volve the absurdity that iniblic opinion can change 
a moi'ol ride of action, not only regardless of the' 
law of God and the relations he has estabhshed 
among men, but in opposition to both. To avoid 
these consequences, should you say the African 
slave-trade was, and is, morally just and right in 
itself, regardless of pubHc opinion, you would con- 
cede that your great ado about public opinion is a 
mere deceptive farce, and has nothing to do with 
the moral aspect of the question, which is the only 
issue now before us. 

Again: your whole claim on pubhc opinion, in 
support of this barbarous business, is a sheer fal- 
lacy. I need not pause here to prove to you that 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 205 

the African slave-trade is now carried on to a fear- 
ful extent, and that the presumption is, with 
greater atrocities than ever characterized the dia- 
bolical business before; and that not a few Ameri- 
cans are engaged in it, and that thousands of their 
victims are chained in slavery in this country ; and 
that millions of dollars are pocketed by those 
gentlemen — villains, who ought to be in the peni- 
tentiary for life — as the proceeds of this inhuman 
and unholy traffic in the souls and bodies of men. 
Did public opinion in this or any other country 
originate, and does it sustain, the present covert 
system of the slave-trade with its complicated vil- 
lainies and appliances, by which annually untold 
thousands of human beings perish in battle, and 
by starvation and suffocation in the holds of slavers, 
and being thrown overboard, and by cruel scourg- 
ing, and other means which the hght of eternity 
alone will reveal ; while thousands more are chained 
in hopeless bondage till death releases them from 
the tyrant's grasp? No man who expects to be 
believed will answer in the affirmative. Here, 
then, are stubborn facts which contradict your 
whole theory that the African slave-trade depends, 
or ever did depend, on public opinion either for its 
existence or its moral character. So far from it 
that, while the righteous indignation of Protestant 
Christendom, with the exception probably of a por- 



206 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

tion of the southern Churches, is frowning upon 
and opposing the accursed system, it is still, 
through the deep depravity, cunning, cupidity, 
and lust of gold, of a comparatively few^ with un- 
abated energy spreading its desolations among 
countless thousands of its victims annually ! Pre- 
cisely in the same spirit, and on the same prin- 
ciple, and for the same object, the feiv, without 
consulting " public opinion," and waiting for it to 
"mature," originated the African slave-trade, and 
sent their victims to the American colonies and 
British islands. And if historical facts had not 
been ignored, overlooked, or suppressed, your lec- 
tures would have showed us that public opinion 
was neither formed nor consulted till the feiu had 
brought the evil upon the many; and when pubhc 
opinion was waked up on the subject, public opinion 
was divided; and thoughi corrupt government, po- 
litical depravity, and gold succeeded for a time, 
there was an unceasmg struggle by the friends of 
humanity and justice, till public opinion was en- 
lightened, and, in the light of the law of God, tri- 
umphed, and the abominable system was abolished 
in both countries, and the American government 
marked it as a crime meriting a felon's death! 

Your dilemma that we must either admit the 
godliness of the African slave-trade, or implicate 
the " great and good men" whose names you have 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 207 

paraded on your pages as a " band of robbers and 
freebooters," is so clearly a "miserable cant to 
storm by prejudice what you can not demolish 
by argument/' that, since I have exposed your 
?/hole theory as a compound of contradictions and 
absurdities, it really merits no further notice, other 
than a flat denial of your preposterous assump- 
tions. But, after all, the climax is wanting to 
complete and ornament the grand picture of the 
African slave-trade; but, Doctor, you are on hand, 
and will not leave a work of such magnitude un- 
finished. Hence, after a glowing description of the 
ignorance, depravity, and paganism of Africa, 
" stretching forth her imploring hands, appealing 
to the benevolence of the world for relief," it was 
discovered that the African slave-trade could be 
baptized " a great nmsionary enterprise^'' and " the 
idea was caught at in both hemispheres as a ' God- 
send'' for Africa, for the colonies, and for a common 
civiHzation." (Page 172.) And no sooner was 
this grand " ^ Godsend' missionary idea caught^' 
than this noble work was commenced in the tears 
and blood of its henefieiaries, and has been carried 
on ever since to the present hour; and in the ex- 
uberance of its " benevolence," with a truly-Mo- 
hammedan zeal, has fomented wars and spread 
cruelties over the land to an extent not known 

before in pagan Africa. 0, ungrateful Africa! 

18 



208 EEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

why are not tliy shouts of joy still heard in the 
land? why are not thy songs of praise feasting 
the ears and thrilling the heart of the Christian 
world, and thy loud halleluiahs going up to heaven 
for the priceless blessing of Dr. S.'s '^missionanj 
Godsend'' of the glorious African slave-trade? 
by which thy native soil has been baptized with 
the blood of thy sons, millions of thy children 
slain and hurried into eternity, shrouded in the 
darkness of paganism, and millions more enslaved 
in this and other countries in hopeless bondage 
and equally-hopeless heathenism!! The African 
slave-trade a "benevolent missionary Godsend!" 
The idea is scarcely one remove from blasphemy ! ! 
0, Slavery! if thou wert not a monster, with a 
heart of adamant, and cheeks of brass, thou 
wouldst blush for thine own impertinence and de- 
pravity, and the pitiable attitude thou dost put 
those into who attempt to defend thee ! 

Dear sir, you have indeed timely suggested that, 
"in default of historic record" on these subjects 
we must depend on other sources in making up a 
judgment in the case; and jouy pious imagination 
has served your cause much better than the cold facts 
of history could have done ; and as the material cost 
but little you have drawn on it with an unsparing 
hand. And did not the evidence and reasons, a 
priori and a posteriori, the convictions of common- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 209 

sense and justice, and of our common humanity, 
and the testimony of history and tradition, the 
spirit of Christianity and the law of God — all 
enter an indignant protest against your little less 
than preposterous assumptions in order to sanctify 
a system marked by the darkest catalogue of 
crimes that ever outraged the rights of the human 
race, your defense of the bloody system might 
be recognized by strangers, if detached from other 
topics, as an ordinary specimen of juvenile college 
declamation. As it is, however, in the judgment 
of the impartial your reputation must suffer, and 
the performance be pronounced wholly unworthy 
the position and abilities of the man. It might 
be expected that the infidelity and avarice of the 
age would attempt to defend the origin and opera- 
tions of the system; but it is utterly inexplicable 
that a Protestant minister, a doctor of divinity, 
should thrust himself into the arena and stereo- 
type his testimony in favor of a system of cruelty 
and crime, at which humanity shudders, Christian- 
ity blushes, and over which indignant justice holds 
the thunders of his law, only awaiting the repent- 
ance and restitution of the perpetrators to avert 
the stroke, or the order of God to strike the blow 
and sweep the curse of slavery from the earth, 
though it should be with the same wrath that des- 
olated Egypt for the same crime ! With another 



210 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

remark or two I will leave you for a time to enjoy 
the glories of your defense of the "missionary" 
character and the godliness of the African slave- 
trade; and, for your comfort, I can assure you 
with confidence, you will have but few competitors 
for such a palm, at least by men of piety and self- 
respect. 

You no doubt felt safe in asserting that "the 
number of Africans who have died in the com- 
munion of the several Churches in this country — 
and who, therefore, we may assume, were Chris- 
tianized by their residence in this country — ex- 
ceeds the whole number of all the heathen who 
have been Christianized by the labors of all the 
Protestant denominations of Christendom since 
the days of Luther" — page 174 — for the case is 
of such a nature that no one can prove the nega- 
tive; but it is equally clear that you can never 
prove the truth of your assumption. Every friend 
of humanity would be gratified to have some evi- 
dence that what you have said here is true ; but, on 
the other hand, none who have examined the sub- 
ject can resist the conviction that, for every slave 
who has been converted and died a true Christian, 
there have been a hundred souls sent into eternity 
in all the darkness of heathenism, through the di- 
rect and indirect operations of the African slave- 
trade. • In the sanguinary wars excited by it in 



AND PEACTICE OF SLAVERY. 211 

Africa, the horrors of the "middle passage," the 
process of "seasoning" — starved, flogged, and 
worked to death — doubtless the light of eternity 
will reveal double that number. God never au- 
thorized any such process for the conversion of 
the heathen; it is, in its whole character and opera- 
tions, an earth-born scheme full of corruption, and 
an outrage upon the genius of the Gospel and the 
order of Heaven. Do you mean. Doctor, that the 
slave-trade, or slavery, is to have the credit for 
the conversion — instrumentally — of those slaves 
you talk about? If you do you are deceived 
yourself or mean to deceive others. 

While the African slave-trade and slavery in 
this country have been the means of sending 
millions unconverted into the endless world, I 
deny that they ever were or will be the means of 
converting a single soul. Every slave that has 
been converted, or ever will be converted, instead 
of being indebted to the system of slavery for his 
salvation, has been, and will be, converted and 
saved through the instrumentahty of the Gospel, 
in spite of the ungodliness of the depraved sys- 
tem. To assert that ever a soul was converted to 
God and saved through the African slave-trade, or 
the system of American slavery, would be as false 
as the father of lies, and blasphemy against the 
Gospel of the Son of God. 



212 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

Hoping, without delay, to renew my interview 
with you, on the grave question of perpetual, in- 
voluntary, unremunerated human bondage, I still 
remain your friend and faithful reviewer, 

J. H. P. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 213 



LETTER X. 

GOVERNMENT SUITED TO THE SLAVES IN 
THIS COUNTRY. 

The form of government suited to the slaves in this country — It must 
be either a military or patriarchal despotism — Slaveholders the 
only persons competent to judge — The right of property is the 
issue — Slaveholders being a party have no right to decide the 
question — " The necessity of the institution of domestic slavery " — 
As the north have not allowed the Africans among them political 
equality, the south have a right to enslave the Africans among 
them — The free people of color have not materially improved their 
condition — Slavery is the natural state of the Africans — The his- 
tory of Liberia contradicts these positions. 

Rev. Dr. Smith, — Your eighth lecture — "Do- 
mestic SLAVERY, AS A SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT FOR THE 

Africans in America, examined and defended on 
the ground of its adaptation to the present con- 
DITION OF THE RACE "—notwithstanding its sounding 
title, is little other than a modified rehearsal of 
the matter of former lectures, of some of which we 
have had nearly a dozen editions. Assuming that 
all your previous positions were conceded as true, 
but which I have shown to be incurably false, and 
also reaffirming the fallacy, which has been fully 
refuted, that there is no middle ground or medium 



214 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

between political sovereignty and absolute slavery, 
you proceed : " The African is now here. Whether 
right or wrong originally is not the question before 
us. He is here. What form of government is 
best suited to him, and those with whom he is 
necessarily associated?" (Page 177.) 

After affirming they must exist among us as a 
" separate and inferior race," under a subordinate 
government, you say it " must either assume some 
form of military government, or it must conform 
to the patriarchal species of government — a kind 
of family government — ^that is, the domestic form 
for which we contend. And as between a subordi- 
nate military or patriarchal form of government, 
both as regards the expense and the comfort, there 
can be no controversy, we may consider the claims 
of the patriarchal form, or the system of domestic 
slavery, as established in this case." (Pages 178, 
179.) This, Doctor, is setthng the " controvei-sy " 
in quite a summary manner; and although it may 
be satisfactory to you, there are others who have 
interests and rights involved in this ^'controversy" 
who do not believe a word of what you affirm — 
that the government must be either a military 
despotism, or absolute perpetual slavery, for that 
is what you mean by ''the patriarchal form T 
You found it very convenient to dismiss the ques- 
tion, " whether they were brought here originally. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 215 

right or wrong," with scarcely a passing remark, 
although that question lies at the very foundation 
of the whole system of slavery. And I have 
shown, with a clearness and force which defy suc- 
cessful contradiction, that slavery — which means 
propertif in the j^erson of a mem — originated in 
violence and robbery, not robbing a third person 
of his property — his slave — but robbing the man 
of his liberty and rights, the gift of God — robbing 
him of himself, and reducing him to the condition 
of property, by maldng him a slave; and that 
slavery is perpetuated on the same principle and 
by precisely the same process to the present day. 
And, in like manner, it has been shown that 
neither timey nor circumstances^ nor both together 
can change the moral character of the roht)ery, 
and convert it into a Scriptural, godly, "patri- 
archal institution!" 

And, although it were admitted in all its force 
that the Africans brought to this country were 
slaves in their own land, it would not relieve your 
case in the least ; for it matters not when or where 
they were enslaved, it was done by robbing them 
of their divinely-authorized rights. If it origin- 
ated in Africa it was Africa's sin of robbery, and 
the slave-trade has transferred it to this country, 
and perpetuates it as the unpardonable and unre- 
formable crime of the guilty system. Having re- 
19 



216 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

moved the sophistical covering of your foundation, 
on which you rest the claims of a "military/' or a 
"patriarchal despotism," as the only government 
at all adapted to the slaves in this country, I need 
only deny your conclusion as a blind fallacy, of 
which any other system except that of slavery 
might be "profoundly ashamed." In this, as in 
other instances on this subject, it might be sup- 
posed that you use language to conceal instead of 
to convey ideas. In your soft use of the terms 
"military" and "patriarchal," did you intend that 
the uninitiated should understand a system of 
government which commenced in violence and 
robbery, and that is perpetuated in the same 
moral character, by reducing human beings, whom 
God formed to be free, to perpetual degradation 
and slavery, subjecting them to all the laws and 
accidents of property, and their posterity after 
them? If you did, you are extremely unfor- 
tunate as a scholar in the selection of terms; if 
you did not, you have concealed facts vital to this 
question. True, you say those who first com- 
menced the African slave-trade from this country 
"negotiated a purchase with those who had long 
held and treated them as slaves." By what au- 
thority did they "hold and treat them as slaves?" 
By none other under heaven than that of rohhery! 
Either they, or some one before them, had robbed 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 217 

the man of his hberty and natural rights, and re- 
duced him to the relations of chattels as a slave ; 
and, although he should change owners ten thou- 
sand times, it would not wash out the crime of 
robbery, and every one who receives him after the 
original robbery is an '' accessory after the offense." 
And, according to the slavery code, this system of 
perpetuated violence and robbery is a "patriarchal 
institution," and must have "a patriarchal form of 
government" to perpetuate the villainy!! 

If righteous wrath could move the dust of the 
dead, the tombs of the departed pious would be 
vital with holy indignation for the slander of as- 
cribing a system of perpetual robbery, with all its 
machinery of chains, prisons, handcuffs, gory 
whips, domestic ruin, and burning of human be- 
ings alive, to patriarchal paternity! But, further- 
more, your whole theory of laws and government 
for slaves, as maintained in your lectures, is based, 
in fact^ on a principle which is repudiated by every 
just and legitimate government in the civilized 
world; and which, if it were not excluded from 
every code, would produce universal anarchy by 
destroying all government, if it did not in the end 
destroy the race itself; namely, "that a man may 

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIS OWN WRONG, and ftcad the 

commission of one cmne in justification of its repe- 
tition, and the perpetratio7i and perpetuation of 



218 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

others''' That slavery had its origin in robbing 
the man of his freedom and natural rights, as 
the only means of reducing him to the condition 
of property as a slave, is a simple fact which no 
honest man of intelligence will deny. And as it 
has been demonstrated that no length of time can 
extinguish the right of the man to himself^ the 
conclusion is resistless that the slaves were brought 
to this country by continuing the original wrong, 
and are retained in bondage on the same principle 
of wrong. Now, your doctrine is, that because 
they are here — though brought among us by a 
system of tremendous, unmitigated ivrong — the 
same system must be continued, lest the suc- 
cessors of the original wrong should sustain some 
loss, or be subjected to some inconvenience ; there- 
fore, it must be perpetuated to the latest genera- 
tion of the sufferers — the robbed — the poor slaves ! 
The ethics and logic would be equally sound for 
the villain to say: "I have knocked Dr. W. A. 
Smith down to get his money, and now if I leave 
him he will revive and either pursue me and recover 
his funds, or inform against me and have me pun- 
ished as a robber; therefore, in self-defense, I will 
render my safety perpetual, if it is even by taking 
his life, as costing less than a 'military despotism,' 
and as the only 'patriarchal government' suited to 
the case of Dr. Smith, now lying robbed and bleed- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 219 

ing at my feet; and, besides, I being a party con- 
cerned, understand the case much better than any 
of those ^northern fanatics' can, and, indeed, I am 
the only one competent to judge; consequently, 
the ^controversy is at an end in this case' — Dr. 
Smith must be rendered harmless, became I 
knocked him down, bruised, mangled, and robbed 
him in the premises!!" 

I shall not stop here to discuss in detail forms 
of government for the African population in this 
country, other than to say, that any government 
that ignores or disregards the individual rights and 
the domestic relations which God has ordained for 
universal application in human society, is a wicked 
government^ and sooner or later will meet the doom 
of wicked institutions. Therefore, the government 
that recognizes and protects these rights and rela- 
tions will at once and forever paralyze the cruel 
kidnapping-hand of slavery, and will protect in 
freedom every child born of slave parents, and 
will place them under the direct influence of the 
means of Christian civilization as provided in the 
Gospel of the grace of God. It will also take all 
those who are now slaves fi'om under the laivs of 
2')roperty, protect them in the rights of the domes- 
tic relations, and prepare them for freedom, just as 
speedily as it can be done without infringing the 
moral rights of others. Any other government, 



220 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

whether claiming to be based on expediency, the 
moral condition of the slaves, or whatever else, 
if it ignores or disregards the claims of justice, 
and the relations God has established, is an ungodly 
government, at war with humanity and God, and 
in the end must incur the retributive curse of 
Heaven ! Such in fact is the real character of the 
government for which you contend, substituting 
the worldly expediency of men for the wisdom and 
justice of God! 

Your implied claim, that because the " northern 
states" have not opened "the road to the offices 
of trust, honor, and profit," nor secured equal so- 
cial rights and privileges for the free-colored popu- 
lation among them, therefore the " southern states" 
are justified in chaining in perpetual bondage, ig- 
norance, and degradation, the Africans who are 
among them, is fully worthy the cause of slavery, 
but not of any special notice from your reviewer. 
The logic is, if one section of the country inflicts 
a partial wrong upon a small portion of the Afri- 
cans, the other section may inflict a permanent and 
perpetual wrong upon the masses of the Africans : 
the reiteration, in another form, of the doctrine, 
that the commission of one crime may be pleaded in 
justification of the perpetration of others of much 
greater magnitude. 

Planting yourself again on the old absurdity, 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 221 

which T have had occasion to expose a dozen times 
already, that the Africans must either be elevated 
at once to '' ^^oUtical sovereignty,'' or placed under 
an "extreme despotism'' of perpetual slavery, as 
chattels in the hands of their owners, you gravely 
assume that the southern people are the only com- 
petent judges in the case, and they, having decided 
the unfitness of the Africans for the former, are 
fully warranted in inflicting upon them the latter. 
You affirm, "The intelligent and honest portion 
of the country will scarcely fail to allow that the 
judgment of the southern people, as to the char- 
acter and capabilities of the Africans, is entitled to 
the highest confidence, and may be regarded as an 
authoritative settlement of this question." (Page 
188.) "This," quoting your own language to 
others, " is perhaps the coolest piece of impertinent 
self-conceit to be found on record!" The right 
OF PROPERTY — tmder the latvs of humanity, of jus- 
tice, and of God — is the grave question at issue, in- 
volving the highest interests, present and future, 
of mfllions of immortal beings now living, and mill- 
ions yet unborn. The slave claims his freedom, the 
gift of God, and the state for which his constitu- 
tion — his intellectual, moral, and physical nature, 
with all the desires, instincts, and breathings of 
his immortality — were formed by the wisdom and 
power of God. He claims his liberty himself^ in 



222 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

the name of humanity, in the name of Christian 
benevolence, in the name of common justice, in 
the name of God, as revealed in his word. " The 
southern people" claim the rigid of property in his 
person — his soul, body, and spirit — the right to 
use his person as a chattel; to use him for their 
benefit alone; to set him up at auction, buy, sell, 
give, or gamble him away at pleasure. This is the 
true issue — unlike the case of lands confiscated 
centuries ago, the original owners dead, and no one 
to claim title or possession — the original owner 
is here^ in person, claiming directly for himself both 
the title and possession of that of zvhich he has been 
robbed, and is still robbed by slavery. In whom now 
is the right of property in this controversy? It is 
indeed questionable whether the "record" can 
furnish another as "cool a piece of impertinent 
self-conceit," that, in a case like this, one of the 
parties should claim exclusive right "authori- 
tatively to settle the controversy!" This, how- 
ever, is but another instance of the reckless des- 
potism of slavery. 

You have, either with or without design, 
"dodged" the real question — the right of prop- 
erty in the person of man — and made a '''false 
issued' the mere form of government best suited to 
the Africans in a state of involuntary perpetual 
bondage ; but, sir, neither you nor your cause can 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 223 

escape so easily. Your equivocations have all 
been anticipated, and your claim of exclusive right 
to settle this momentous controversy indignantly 
repudiated. An impartial jury have already been 
^* impanneled," and the true issue — the right of 
property in the person of human beings — is now 
being tried at the bar and in the court of Christen- 
dom — the court of the civilized world! and the 
Supreme Judge will execute the final sentence 
with the certainty of immutable justice. The 
testimony against the system — the right of prop- 
erty in man — ^is accumulating in ominous magni- 
tude. The tears, blood, and dying agonies caused 
by the "slave-catching system" in Africa; the in- 
describable horrors, sufferings, and death in the 
"middle passage;" the chains, handcuffs, and 
prisons in this country; "the slave-pens" in the 
metropolis of this republic, and the "barracoons" 
in the south ; the agonies and infamy of the " auc- 
tion-block" in the slave markets; the outrages 
committed on the domestic relations, and the cries 
and sorrows of families forever broken up in this 
world; the millions gone and going into the fu- 
ture world from this professedly Christian land in 
a state of barbarism ; for your own " moral affida- 
vit" is, that after seven generations of slaves have 
passed into eternity from this Christian country, the 
slaves of the south are still " uncivilized," and in 



224 REVIEW OP THE P-HILOSOPHY 

a " state of barbarism" — all testify before Christen- 
dom and the civilized world that the system has 
wickedly deprived its victims of their natural and 
dearest rights, is of diabolical origin, totally cor- 
rupt in character, a heartless, practical despotism, 
and an unmitigated curse to society. The verdict 
will soon be matured, and no one acquainted with 
the history of slavery in other countries, with the 
providences of God, and the design of the Gospel, 
can be in doubt as to the character of the decision, 
and the final destruction of the system in this re- 
public. It will be doomed to inevitable perdition, 
as sure as justice reigns on the throne of God; 
and in rendering that decision, so far from respect- 
ing the " impertinent " claims of one party to the 
exclusive right to settle the " controversy," it will 
be promptly " ruled out," and that party may not 
in the end escape merited punishment for " con- 
tempt of court." 

When justice is rendered to the slave, and he is 
treated as a man instead of a chattel, it will be 
the business of the nation, and not a few inter- 
ested slave-owners, to say what kind of govern- 
ment he shall be placed under for the protection 
of his rights and privileges, and the development 
of his character and humanity. Dear Doctor, as 
your ninth lecture contains nothing new or im- 
portant, I shall dispose of it in this letter. Al- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 225 

though it has a new title — "The necessity for 

THE INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY EXAMINED BY 

facts" — it is made up mainly of old matter. 

Like all other "swift witnesses" your great 
anxiety to make out a strong case materially de- 
preciates the credibility of your testimony. You 
claim to have shown that "philosophy, natural 
rights, and holy Scripture " all sustain the system 
of slavery, and that God has sanctioned and 
rendered it as enduring as the decalogue. It 
might be supposed, if you really believed all this, 
you would be perfectly satisfied to let the "patri- 
archal institution " repose in safety on such a four- 
fold rock as that; but you have given unmis- 
takable evidence of skepticism as to the truth of 
your premises, by attempting to prop the tottering 
fabric by a process that would render even a good 
cause suspicious. 

This lecture is mainly an '^ ex-parte'''' and very 
partial statement of the unsuccessful efforts of the 
free Africans to elevate their condition in this 
country, and a case of "special pleading" against 
the cause of human freedom. Your position is, 
many or most of the liberated slaves have failed 
materially to improve their physical and intellect- 
ual condition; therefore, "it is the accident of his 
position that he is free, and not the law of his in- 
tellectual and moral nature that makes him so." 



226 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

(Page 196.) This view conceals some important 
facts in the premises and perverts others; and the 
conclusion contradicts the constitution and con- 
sciousness of man, and impeaches the wisdom of 
God in regard to his moral relations. Many will 
believe that you designedly suppressed the fact 
that all the efforts of the Africans, in this country, 
to improve their condition have been made under 
greater disadvantages than any other portion of 
the entire population, whether foreign or native 
born. Their ignorance of letters and science, of 
the laws and customs of business; their want of 
habits of industry, economy, and self-respect; 
their almost entire destitution of means, and the 
withering influence of an unholy prejudice — all of 
which are the effects of the curse and cruelty of 
slavery, under which they and their ancestors have 
groaned and been degraded for ages — have all re- 
sisted their progress in improvements. And not- 
withstanding these formidable obstacles, and that 
a spurious civilization and a pseudo piety have ex- 
cluded them and their children from the public 
schools, not a few have burst through those em- 
barrassments, and with a soundness of judgment, 
energy of character, and a perseverance that would 
do honor to a high degree of civilization and 
a pure Christianity, have obtained a good prac- 
tical and some a classical education; thousands 



AND PKACTICE OF SLAVERY. 227 

have acquired the means of support and comfort, 
and many have accumulated wealth. And the 
instances are sufficiently numerous to rebuke as 
with a voice of thunder, and, if they were capable 
of a blush, to mantle the cheeks of the advocates 
of slavery in a crimson of shame — of men raised 
from infancy to manhood, and middle age, in the 
ignorance and degradation of slavery, who have 
obtained the unspeakable boon from their " benev- 
olent owners," of commencing without a penny, 
but with the firmness of a man, and the heart and 
affections of a husband and father, and earning the 
means, purchasing their own and the liberty of 
their wives and children, and providing homes and 
comforts where free families live, love and worship 
that God who abhors the system which enslaves 
and degrades the works of his own hands and the 
purchase of his Son's blood. While these cases 
are standing refutations of the slanders of slavery 
advocates, they are achievements of true manhood 
which — circumstances considered — will lose noth- 
ing compared with the triumphs of a Napoleon! 

How intensely odious is that system, which, not 
satisfied with enslaving and degrading millions of 
mankind, but must conceal their virtues, and de- 
preciate the efforts to improve their condition in 
society of those who have escaped from its chains ! 
Again, on the same principle you ought to enslave 



228 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

all those free white persons and families who, under 
circumstances vastly more favorable than those of 
the free blacks, have failed to improve their condi- 
tion in life. Many of them commenced with fine 
fortunes and numerous friends, but died in the 
poor-house, and many of their children are follow- 
ing in the paths of their "illustrious predecessors." 
Why, Doctor, do you not, in the fullness of your 
sympathies for suffering humanity, bring the "Fu- 
gitive-Slave law" into requisition, or have one 
framed expressly for the purpose, and bring these 
poor, white suffering wretches into the "patri- 
archal" paradise of perpetual slavery, where they 
and their children could not only be amused by 
the novelty, but enjoy the exquisite pleasure of 
being carried — if they did not have to walk — to 
the slave-market, and of being sold on the auc- 
tion-block as chattels or articles of commerce? 

In your reference to "the colony of Liberia," 
you have inadvertently wounded fatally your whole 
defense of perpetual slavery. To discountenance 
emancipation in every form, and to rivet faster the 
chains of bondage on human beings, you give a 
graphic and glowing sketch of the attempts to 
colonize the Africans in the southern states, and 
add, " In every instance the owners have been com- 
pelled to resume the control of their slaves, to 
prevent them from becoming a tax on community, 



AND PRACTICE OP SLAVERY. 229 

and a nuisance in the neighborhood." (Page 193.) 
Of similar efforts in other states you say, " With a 
few honorable exceptions, the free blacks are not 
as well provided for as the slaves;" . . . "they 
live by petty depredations on society;" . . . 
" their retrograde tendency is so obvious," that but 
for some accidents " they would soon relapse into 
the savage state ;" . . . " without the re- 
straints of the domestic system [perpetual, abso- 
lute slavery] the tendencies of his barbarous 
nature are left, in a good degree, to take their down- 
ward way" to the savage and barbarous state. 
(Pages 194, 19G.) This is truly a gloomy pic- 
ture, and especially when you tell us that all this 
is traceable to intellectual and moral imbecihty for 
self-government." Who would have supposed that 
this mass of " ignorance," " barbarism," and " ex- 
treme degradation" could have furnished the ma- 
terial — men and women — with which, in less than 
forty years, to build up a colony or state in Africa, 
which challenges a parallel for success and pros- 
perity in the history of mankind, and which " has 
already taken its place among the nations of the 
earth as a free and independent government?" 
and, as you truthfully add, "No colony has ever 
prospered as that has done. As a rising nation, it 
shares the sympathies of the civilized world. It 
is destined to become the asylum of the Africans 



230 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

of America, and the center of civilization to the 
long-benighted continent of Africa, whither all 
eyes are turned as the oasis of hope in her desert 
history." You ask, " How has this hopeful colony 
arisen to its present position?" and answer, "It 
has been built up from the free colored population 
of this country; colonized by their own consent. 
Herein divine Providence has wisely discriminated 
the proper subjects for this great enterprise. His 
own established order of things has effected a ju- 
dicious discrimination of the proper persons for the 
work." (Page 198.) 

Few, if any, can fail to see the great incongrui- 
ties, not to say contradictions, in which the defense 
of perpetual, involuntary slavery has involved you. 
You have either greatly overrated the " ignorance, 
barbarism, and extreme degradation" of the free 
people of color in this country, or you have wholly 
underrated their capabilities for self-government, 
or you have quite exaggerated the success and 
prosperity of the colony of Liberia. It is liter- 
ally impossible that all can be true. None, how- 
ever, who are acquainted with the facts, will charge 
you with the last. The colonization entei prise has 
succeeded beyond the most sanguine hopes of its 
most ardent friends and supporters; "it shares the 
sympathies of the civilized world," and its sover- 
eignty and national independence have been ac- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 231 

knowledged by many of the national governments 
of the earth, although the pro-slavery influence 
has been, and still is, sufficiently potent in our 
government to spurn any such recognition from 
our democratic republican door — a reproach to the 
nation, and a mark of infamy upon the system of 
slavery! Every intelligent observer, therefore, 
will see that your defense of slavery stands fully 
convicted on both the other charges; for, not- 
withstanding the disabilities and embarrassments 
which "the free colored population of this coun- 
try" are placed under — excluded generally from 
the public schools and the institutions of learning, 
"the crushing weight" of prejudice pressing them 
from every point, social and poHtical encourage- 
ments withheld from them, and but few to sympathize 
with them in any circumstances — they have given 
the cleare-st practical demonstration of their capac- 
ity for self-government in the history of the Liberia 
colony, and have thereby refuted the ten thousand 
calumnies upon their true character and their ca- 
pabilities for freedom. Your system may try to 
escape from these contradictions by claiming that 
the "few honorable exceptions" among the igno- 
rance and barbarism of the free colored population, 
which you have been kind enough to name, consti- 
tuted the patriotic band which planted that colony 

under peculiarly-discouraging circumstances, and 

20 



232 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

have raised and matured it into an independent 
republic — a sovereign nation, the admiration of the 
civiHzed world! Such indeed is your statement: 
" Those only whose intellects furnished the flint 
and steel from which the spark of liberty could be 
struck, and upon the altar of whose hearts the fires 
of freedom could be kindled to light their pathway 
to that far-off and inhospitable land, would embark 
in this great work." (Page 199.) 

But this burst of eloquence, with all its beauty, 
does not effect the escape, for you are intercepted 
by the authority of official statistical figures and 
facts, which clearly show that you either did not 
understand the case, or inexcusably misstated the 
facts. So far is it from being true that the repub- 
lic of Liberia was planted and fostered, to its 
present national prosperity, by the choice spirits 
only from among the free colored people — "whose 
hearts throbbed with the pulsations of liberty" — 
that of the nine thousand colonists sent to Li- 
beria, by the American Colonization Society, ex- 
clusive of a thousand or more sent by the Mary- 
land State Colonization Society, from the years 
1820 to 1855 inclusive, only 3,623 were born 
free, while 5,341 were born slaves. Of the latter 
three hundred and six purchased their own free- 
dom; leaving 5,035 — more than half the entire 
number of those who have built up the Liberia 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 233 

republic, and who have surprised the civilized 
world with their intelligence, enterprise, and pow- 
ers of self-government — ^who were " emmicipated in 
vietv of emigrating to Liheriay (^African Rep., No. 
2, 1856.) With these facts before their eyes, it 
will require more than human eloquence to con- 
vince men of intelligence that, if the Africans in 
this country were allowed even the elementary 
principles of an education, the full enjoyment of 
the privileges of the blessed Gospel, and their do- 
mestic relations sacredly protected, they would not 
be capable of self-government, and civil, and re- 
ligious freedom; or that, while those rights and 
privileges are withheld from them, we are not per- 
petrating an outrage on justice and humanity, for 
which Heaven will hold us to a strict national ac- 
countability, and, if persisted in, to a fearful ret- 
ribution. If the Africans of this country were 
allowed their rights, and treated as lywi, their im- 
provements in character and condition would soon 
relieve you of the labor of constructing "extreme 
despotisms" for their government ^^ property — 
"chattels in the hands of their owners." 

But, Doctor, with this successful experiment of 
African self-government and national prosperity in 
Liberia before your mind, you appear to grow 
hopeful and almost to forget that you are pledged 
to oppose "every form of emancipation,^' and to 



234 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

defend, as of Divine origin, perpetual, involuntary 
slavery in its entire property form. Of the Libe- 
ria republic you say: 1. "This rising nation is 
destined to become the asylum of the Africans in 
America, and the center of civilization of the long- 
benighted continent of Africa." 2. "That God, 
in his own established order of things, has effected 
a judicious discrimination of the proper persons — 
Hhe free colored population of this country' — for 
this work." 3. " That it is a general, and indeed an 
almost universal opinion in the south, [which you 
approve and defend,] that any thing Hke a system 
of emancipation, whether direct or gradual, by 
which the number of free colored persons should 
be materially increased in the southern states, 
would inevitably be followed by their indiscrim- 
inate massacre, as the only means of abating an 
insufferable nuisance." (Page 202.) Here are 
gross incongruities enough to bring a good cause 
into disrepute, and what support an odious one can 
derive from them I leave others to judge. 

1. The Liberia repubhc is to be the asylum for 
the Africans now in America. 2. They must go 
there 'Hhe free colored pojmlation' from this 
country. 3. The Africans of America are now 
slaves, and "any system of direct or gradual eman- 
cipation that would materially increase the number 
of free colored persons, would inevitably be followed 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 235 

by their indiscriminate massacre!" And now, 
Doctor, how under the sun are you ever to get 
the Africans of America to the Liberia republic in 
Africa? They must go there free if they ever go, 
for they can not go as slaves. But they can never 
get there free unless they are emancipated ; and 
you oppose emancipation in every form; then 
how on earth will you get them to this asylum? 
In your learned efforts to avoid ruinous conse- 
quences, varnish absurdities, and reconcile contra- 
dictions — all of which must be done in defending 
the system of human bondage and degradation — we 
are forcibly reminded of the county commissioners 
who, in their official dignity, gravely resolved, 1. 
That they would build a new jail; 2. That they 
would build it of the materials of the old jail; 3. 
That the old jail should stand till the new one was 
huilt! Your attempt to find American slavery 
" very strikingly exemplified by the history of the 
remnant of the Canaanites, who still dwelt in the 
land after its subjugation and settlement by the 
ancient Israelites" — page 203 — is fully worthy 
the cause for which you have adduced it, but does 
injustice to yourself both as a logician and divine. 
There is but one point of agreement between 
those cases, and that is their sinfulness. The 
Canaanites were incurably devoted to idolatry, and 
Bunk irreformably in depravity and national sins. 



236 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

Retributive justice decided to destroy them, and 
by express command commissioned the Hebrews 
the ministers of his judgments; but for their un- 
faithfulness in this workj and their sin in sparing 
the guilty, God announced to them that those 
they had spared in the land "should be snares 
and traps unto them, and scourges in their sides, 
and thorns in their eyes, till they perished from 
off the good land which the Lord their God had 
given them." This sin, and its consequences, fol- 
lowed them through all their subsequent history; 
and in the end, for it, and other national crimes, 
God annihilated the nationality of the Hebrews, 
and with it perished whatever kinds of servitude 
he had authorized among them. 

The sin of American slavery is that of robbing 
men of tlieir rights, reducing them to the condition 
of chattels, and using their persons as property, 
without the authority of God, and in open violation 
of the relations he has established, and of the prin- 
ciples of his moral government among men. And 
the American people will have a thousand reasons 
to be thankful to a merciful Providence if this sin, 
like that of the Hebrews, does not prove to them 
a " snare, and a trap, and a scourge, and thorns in 
their eyes," and stain this land at last with human 
blood. Fine logic this. God commissioned the 
Hebrews to destroy the devoted Canaanites, who 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 237 

had filled to the utmost the cup of their national 
crimes, and to take possession of their land and 
country; therefore^, Americans are authorized to 
go to Africa and kidnap all the natives they can, 
and bring them into this country, and chain them 
in perpetual slavery; or if they do not go them- 
selves they are authorized to purchase the slaves 
from those who do go, and, by robbery and theft, 
procure them from Africa! Intelligent men, who 
are not blinded by interest or prejudice, must be- 
lieve either that slavery does not admit of a fair, 
honorable, and logical defense, or that you are a 
very injudicious or incompetent advocate; for, if 
the system was capable of sensibility at all, it 
might well blush at many specimens of its de- 
fense as found in your book. 

As I shall soon address you again, I close this 
letter as ever your friend, 

J. H. P. 



238 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 



LETTER XI. 

EMANCIPATION AND EDUCATION DOC- 
TRINES OF SLAVERY EXPOSED. 

*' Emancipation doctrines discussed " — Emancipation in every form 
opposed — The domestic element in tlie system of slavery the agent 
in civilizing the slaves — Under this domestic element they were 
uncivilized two centuries ago, and they are yet uncivilized — How 
long will it take to civilize them under the same system ? — " Teach- 
ing the slaves to read and write " — The education of the slaves is 
incompatible with the ''vigorous operation of the principle of slav- 
ery " — The slaves must not be taught to read — The means em- 
ployed to strengthen and perpetuate slavery may in the end de- 
stroy it. 

Rev. W. a. Smith, D. D., — As your last five 
lectures are all based on the assumption that you 
had established the philosophical and divine origin 
and character of absolute slavery in all its property 
and chattel forms, and as I have shown the utter 
fallacy of your whole foundation in this respect, I 
might pass them with but little notice without de- 
tracting from the merits of this investigation. 
However, that you may be satisfied I appreciate 
your learned labors on this question, having no- 
ticed two of them, I will give due attention to the 
other three. Your tenth, the one now to be con- 
sidered, is, "Emancipation doctrines discussed." 



AND PRACTICE OP SLAVERY. 239 

Having dismissed at once, as deserving no atten- 
tion whatever, the subject of immediate emancipa- 
tion, you direct your strength against all systems 
of gradual or progressive emancipation of Ameri- 
can slaves; but your objections to emancipation 
are as impotent as your arguments for perpetual 
bondage; and neither is worthy the character and 
calling of a minister of Jesus Christ. In your 
theory you are swift to implicate divine Providence 
in the origin and principles of slavery; but after 
you get the system into operation, you discuss the 
subject as if no supreme Ruler of nations exists 
in the universe, whose ears are always attentive to 
the cry of the oppressed, and whose retributive 
justice is visited upon the oppressors. This is the 
more amazing, vsince the history of the past, with 
which I must presume you are not unacquainted, 
and especially that of the Bible, is little more than 
a record — directly and indirectly — of the righteous 
judgments of God visited upon governments and 
systems of oppression which have interposed their 
usurped powers to degrade and to prevent man 
from rising to that intellectual and moral elevation 
for which he was created, and in which alone he 
can serve God according to the design of his crea- 
tion. Such practical skepticism is inexcusable in 
any man claiming to be a Christian. 

But your position on emancipation is wholly de- 
21 



240 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

fective when viewed from another point. You 
treat the question as a matter of mere expedi- 
ency, and as if the moral justice of the system in 
the premises had been either proved or conceded, 
neither of which has been done. You have totally 
failed to prove it; and so far from conceding it, I 
have demonstrated morally the contrary. While, 
therefore, moral justice demands their emancipa- 
tion, all you have said on the question of mere 
expediency is a mere "waste of eloquence upon 
the desert air!" As to the results you suppose, 
should the border slaveholding states pass emjmci- 
pation laws — " that they would be anticipated and 
the slaves sold to the more southern states, and in 
that case such laws would not secure the freedom 
of the slaves; or, if they did, it would increase 
the number of free colored persons in the south, 
and that would lead to their early, inevitable, and 
indiscriminate extermination" — they have no 
weight whatever against facts and the claims of 
justice. Tlwj give mere expediency the supremacy 
over moral right and justice. 

It is impossible that the enslavement of millions 
of human beings, subjecting their persons to all 
the relations and accidents of property, can, in the 
eyes of justice, be a matter of indifference. It 
must be either morally just and right, or morally 
wrong. It can not be both, nor can it be neither. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 241 

Common-sense, humanity, justice, and the word of 
God pronounce it to be wrong ; hence, mere ex- 
pediency and every thing else that would hinder 
must stand aside, and the wrong be removed from 
the injured with the least possible delay. If the 
cupidity and love of slavery in the south are so 
much stronger than the dictates of common-sense, 
conscience, and justice as to prompt them to buy 
up and accumulate slaves in ih^ "most southern 
states," under the operation of such emancipation 
laws, God will not work miracles to save them from 
the consequences. If, with their eyes open, they 
will rush into the sea after the slaves, regardless 
of the suspended walls of water on either hand, 
they may expect to be overwhelmed in the re- 
turning, resistless, and retributive waves ! Not a 
few will be more than surprised at what must be 
considered your great indiscretion, not to say blind 
fanatickniy in your almost boastful threats that 
emancipation would lead "inevitably to the massa- 
cre" of no inconsiderable portion of the Africans 
in the south. "Blustering" threats from that 
source have become so famihar that they have lost 
their terrors; and now, when heard, it is not al- 
ways easy to determine whether the disgust is 
greatest at its authors, or at ourselves for having 
been frightened so long at such harmless thunder. 
As you have been so indiscreet as to bring this 



242 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

view of the subject before the public, I can assure 
you, with the utmost confidence, the south will 
never '^ massacre'^ either the free or slave popula- 
tion of the southern states. Others, besides a com- 
parative handful of slave-owners, will be concerned 
in an enterprise of that kind should such a chas- 
tisement ever come upon this nation. In any such 
calamity the danger will be in the other direction. 
The repeated and grossly-offensive comparisons of 
the intelligent, honorable, and virtuous laboring 
classes in the free states, with the ignorant, de- 
graded slaves of tlje south — made such by the 
system of slavery — have planted deeply in the 
bosoms of millions of free men the most profound 
abhorrence of the whole system of slavery — a sys- 
tem which not only holds millions of the race in 
ignorance and hopeless bondage, but depreciates 
the virtues, and insults the dignity of all those 
who are not either in its advocacy or its chains, 
and that seeks to degrade them to a level with its 
already helpless victims. And unless the whole 
character of human nature should be changed, and 
the entire laws of humanity and sympathy re- 
versed, should such an "exterminating massacre" 
be attempted, both the sympathies and the assist- 
ance of those insulted millions would be with the 
oppressed and in stern opposition to the oppressors. 
I much regret, sir, that you should be even profuse 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 243 

in reiterating those provoking comparisons. You 
say, " I have no hesitation in affirming that, in by 
far the greater number of instances, the condition 
of southern families, embracing domestic slaves, is 
much better- — that is, both whites and blacks — 
than that of the larger number of northern fami- 
lies, with hired domestics, on large farms." (Page 
220.) "The practical working of the system" — 
perpetual slavery, where the slaves are recognized 
and treated as property — "secures to the Afri- 
cans a higher degree of essential happiness than is 
found to exist with the whites who fill menial 
offices of society in the free states." (Page 222.) 
" I repeat, the difference is very great between the 
menials [laborers] of famihes in the free and in 
the slave states, cmd the dijfermce is greatly in fa- 
vor of the slave of the souths (Page 224.) These 
are specimens ; and while they will render effective 
aid in kindling in the hearts of freemen that 
righteous indignation against the system that can 
insult and slander them — that will never slumber 
till our country is redeemed from its curse — they 
also demonstrate that your want of correct knowl- 
edge of the state of society in the free states is at 
least equal to the ignorance you charge upon the 
people of those states in regard to the condition 
of the slaves and the operations of the slavery 
system in the south. Every man of intelligence 



244 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

knows your statements are incorrect, and that you 
either did not know, or, if you did, you have mis- 
represented the fads. In either case, you sacrifice 
pubhc confidence for your love of slavery. 

Even the superficial observer can not fail to see 
your confusion and embarrassment in defending 
absolute perpetual slavery, opposing every form of 
emancipation, and professing to plead for the civil- 
ization of the slaves. If you had not voluntarily 
embarked in this humiliating business I should 
have some sympathy to see you fly in such sus- 
pense from one horn of the dilemma to the other, 
and unable to escape from either. If you admit 
that the system has no power to civilize its vic- 
tims, you increase the abhorrence and contempt of 
the civilized world against slavery. If you allow 
it any efficient civilizing power, such civilization 
will soon compel emancipation — the dilemma is 
absolute, and escape impossible! 

You plead for civiHzation and defend perpetual 
slavery; but slavery is inherently and incurably 
opposed to civiHzation, and civilization is equally 
opposed to slavery. There is no alternative but 
to abandon slavery, or abandon the slaves to bar- 
barism. What can be done for you, Doctor ? Ah ! 
you have made a discovery, and it is fully worth 
the cause! "Any old man" — thanks to good 
luck for an "old man" in such a time of need — 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 245 

" among us is prepared to speak of the great im- 
provement of the slaves within thirty or forty years 
past. The domestic element of the system has ac- 
compHshed this improvement, and will certainly, in 
process of time, greatly elevate the race above 
what it now is." (Page 21C.) How^ long, Doctor, 
before they will be civilized by this domestic proc- 
ess? According to your own repeated statement 
the slaves are in a '^larharom'" and ''uncivilized'' 
state, and this is one of your strongest pleas for 
holding them as property. 

Now I submit to you a problem, the solution of 
which will not require very high attainments in 
mathematics— it can be solved by the "single 
rule of three ;" namely. If the " domestic element" 
in the system of American slavery civihzation has 
been in operation for six generations, or two cen- 
turies, and its subjects — the slaves — were unciv- 
ilized barbarians at the commencement, and now, 
in the seventh generation, they are still such, how 
many centuries or generations under the same sys- 
tem will it require fully to civilize and prepare 
them for the rights and privileges of freemen? I 
fear. Doctor, that your bungling attempt to retreat 
from your difficulties, by the aid of an "old man," 
will be considered more ignoble than to have stood 
your ground and met an honorable defeat. For, 
as will be seen directly, you have strangely enough 



246 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

adduced counter testimony to show that the " old 
man" is an incompetent witness — you say, '^I find 
but few, even among intelligent and practical men, 
who, before their attention is particularly called to 
it," have made any such discovery as the "old 
man" speaks of Your "domestic element of civ- 
ilization" is a ludicrous farce. Every one ac- 
quainted with the facts knows that the great mass 
of the slaves do not spend an average of an hour 
in a month in the society of the whites ; and when 
they are in their presence it is not to take lessons 
in civilization, but, frequently, to be scolded, kicked, 
cursed, or flogged, and driven off to their toils 
with a severity against which Christian civilization 
enters an eternal protest. But it is in open hos- 
tility to the order of God. When, or where did 
he ever authorize men in the work of Christian 
civilization to withhold the Bible, shut out all 
knowledge of letters and science, and to exclude 
their subjects from intercourse with civilized so- 
ciety? to reduce them to abject poverty and ab- 
solute slavery, and to deny them even the oral 
teachings of the Gospel, except by a ministry 
bound to defend such a system of civilization and 
slavery? The idea is preposterous in the ex- 
treme — a gross indignity offered to God — first 
to reduce his intelligent creatures to the legal con- 
dition of chattels, then thrust aside the very 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 247 

means, even to his own law, which he has appointed 
to enhghten the mind, elevate the condition, and 
renew l:he heart, and then to affect to substitute 
the ''domestic element' for God's means; while, in 
not a few instances, this very "domestic element" 
would be greatly improved by a civilizing process 
under the means God has appointed. 

It is but another instance, however, of the antl- 
christian character of the system in virtually 
claiming, with the Papacy of Rome, to sit in the 
seat of God, and to usurp his authority and claim 
his power ! One remark more on this lecture. I 
am entirely at a loss to understand you when you 
invite all "who have sympathy" for the slaves, to 
come to the south and preach "a pure Gospel" to 
them, when it is a notorious fact that not a few 
have been mxobbed and driven out of the country, 
and some have been murdered, for preaching the 
same pure Gospel to the slave and master, which 
Jesus Christ commanded to be preached to "all 
iiations— to every creature." I will not charge 
you with dissembling, but will leave you to ex- 
plain, or others to comprehend you, while I turn 
to an examination of your eleventh lecture: On 
"Teaching the slaves to read and write." As 
this is the first formal specimen of southern litera- 
ture that had fallen into my hands, on this grave, 
practical question, constituting an important part 



248 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

of a reputed discussion of the whole subject of in- 
voluntary, perpetual slavery, and coming from one 
of your acknowledged abilities and notorious zeal 
for the system, and believing that if any light 
could be thrown on the subject of withholding an 
education from the slaves, even to the ability to 
read the Bible, you were the one to do it — I 
turned to this lecture with no common interest, 
and read it with the utmost care and attention. 
Imagine my surprise and disappointment to find 
that all you have said directly on the subject 
might be contained in forty lines, while the balance 
of the lecture, of nearly thirty pages, is taken up 
with what you have repeated, till it has become so 
stale that it requires almost more than Christian 
patience to read it — the "imbecility of the slaves," 
their "ignorance and degradation," their "uncivil- 
ized and barbarous, or semi-barbarous state," their 
unfitness for "political sovereignty," their "sub- 
ordinate" condition, the necessity of the "domes- 
tic despotism," they must be "kept under the vig- 
orous operation of the principle of slavery," and 
so on to the end of the marvelous chapter! 

But, Doctor, I do not intend by these general 
remarks to deprive you of the benefit of your ar- 
gument, for such no doubt you intended it to be, 
though you have not given it in syllogistic form. 
This omission was not, however, from want of 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 249 

ability, but most likely, with all your love of hu- 
man bondage, from a lack of moral courage to 
present without a covering the inherent hostility 
of slavery to the institutions of God. The foun- 
dation of all this you have given in few words — 
" The 'prind'ple of slavery must, of course, be kepi 
in vigorous operation, and the means of improvement 
le wisely adapted to the state of the piipiV — the 
slave. (Page 230.) The argument in form is — 
Any s^rstem of ^improvement" for the slave that 
would hinder or interfere with the " vigorous opera- 
tions" of perpetual absolute slavery must ba un- 
conditionally rejected. But a system of school 
education, or any other system that would teach 
the slave a knowledge of letters, however limited, 
would interrupt the "vigorous operation" of slav- 
ery; therefore, all school education, and every 
thing that would teach a knowledge of letters, 
must be forever rejected by the slave system. The 
reasons are obvious, for " the means of improvement 
must be wisely adapted to the state of the piipiV 
But " the state of the pupil," though a human 
being redeemed and destined for eternal bliss or 
woe, is that of a " chattel in the hands of his 
owner," and his person — soul and body — subjected 
to all the accidents and relations to law of prop- 
erty. And if the "pupil" — the slave — was al- 
lowed the knowledge of letters, even the elementary 



250 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

principles of a practical school education, the light 
of history would reveal to him the desolations of 
the demon of despotism. The Bible would teach 
him that he is a man instead of a " chattel;'' and 
the facts would shine upon his enlightened mind, 
from a thousand sources, that he had been robbed 
of his rights, and made the victim of an ungodly 
oppression. There is no mistake. Doctor, such 
knowledge would not only seriously interrupt " the 
vigorous operations" of slavery, but, at no remote 
period, consign the whole system to an unwept 
grave of infamy, which it has long since merited. 
Your conclusion, therefore, that education and 
slavery are inherently opposed to each other, and 
can not exist together, is unquestionably legiti- 
mate ! However, I must remind you, that although 
you are logically correct on the question, you are 
morally in hostiUty to the means which God has 
appointed and approved for the civilization, eleva- 
tion, and salvation of mankind. In the morally- 
subhme movements of Protestant Christendom of 
the present day — resting on a firmer basis, and 
prosecuted on a broader scale than at any other 
period in the history of the race — for the civihza- 
tion and redemption of the nations of the earth, 
is the Bible, the press, the school, the knowledge 
of letters^ and the light of literature and science 
excluded with more care than the ^* board of 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVE'RY. 251 

health" would guard against the cholera or yellow 
fever? Just the reverse. 

Christianity, to which God imperatively requires 
every other system to bow with reverence, goes to 
the barbarous and uncivilized with an open Bible, 
the Sabbath school, an uncensored press, the 
school, the college, elementary books, and the 
whole literature of Christianity and civihzation, 
and a ministry with "clean hands and a pure 
heart," who have no depraved system of perpetual 
slavery to defend as the condition of being toler- 
ated, or admitted to the social circles of a pro- 
slavery aristocracy, and caressed for their services. 
These are the means and measures of Divine ap- 
pointment, and by which schools have been estab- 
lished and the Bible read on every continent upon 
the globe, but which you have promptly repudiated 
as it regards the millions of slaves in the south, 
and all for the grave reason they would disturb 
and hinder the "vigorous operation of the princi- 
ple of slavery" — that is, they would soon destroy 
the relations of master as legal oivner and slave 
as 2')assive property ! He who would exclude the 
reading of the Bible and religious literature from 
the work of Christian civilization, would be more 
fit for an inmate of the mad-house than for a mis- 
sionary of the Gospel of the Son of God. If there 
was no other evidence of the ungodliness of the 



252 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

system of slavery than the logical consequences 
into which it compels a man of your intelligence 
and talents, that alone is sufficient to "convict it 
of felony." 

Permit me, dear Doctor, in the use of a south- 
ern term, to "ivarn'' you, and pro-slavery ism in 
general, that though you may rear your walls to 
the stars, erect your prisons, forge your chains, 
organize your pro-slavery police, and bathe the 
"driver's" lash in human gore, to shut out the 
light from the African mind in America ; but, as 
neither the righteousness nor the wrath of man 
can stay the clouds in their course or arrest their 
descending showers, so hght from a thousand 
sources is penetrating the great mass of immortal 
mind, which has been chained in the ignorance 
of slavery for generations past. And as, in the 
case of other despotisms, the means they employed 
to increase and perpetuate their power have proved 
their ruin — the barbarous edict of a Pharoah, un- 
der divine Providence, raised up a Moses to lead 
the millions of his brethren from bondage, amid 
the judgments of Heaven which consumed their 
oppressors — so the despotism of American slav- 
ery is not without indications of a similar inflitua- 
tion. The Fugitive-Slave law — a disgrace to the 
statute-books of any civilized nation — was in- 
tended to throw another chain around the en- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 253 

slavedj and to increase, extend, and perpetuate the 
power of the system. But the omens of evil 
from this very source are not a few. 

Every slave reclaimed under this odious law 
carries back with him to bondage enough of the 
" virus" of freedom — for freedom is a deadly poison 
to slavery — to "inoculate" a thousand slaves; 
these will impart it to others, and, as the policy is 
to send those reclaimed runaways to the extreme 
south to prevent the repetition of the sin of seek- 
ing freedom, it will not require a protracted period 
to " leaven the whole lump " with the idea of free- 
dom, however crude and erroneous. Also the more 
recent attempt to prostitute the general govern- 
ment for its support, and to extend its area by 
mobocracy and a process of violence, bloodshed, 
and barbarism, at which humanity shudders, with 
the still later efforts to reopen the horrible African 
slave-trade — all these are tending to the same 
point of drying up the sympathies of humanity for 
the system, and of developing, concentrating, and 
organizing the moral poiuer of Protestant Christen- 
dom and the civilized world against the " abomina- 
tion ivldcli maketli desolale"" — American slavery! 
Allow me again to "warn" all concerned that the 
south must consent, not only not to extend the 
area of slavery, but also to its removal, by the 
wisdom, means, and piety of this nation, or God 



254 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

will overthrow it by the retributive power of his 
judgments, if the nation also falls with it. The 
very ignorance in which you propose to keep the 
slaves may, in the end, lead to a most fearful 
national chastisement, if not ruin; and should 
such a calamity come upon us from that source, 
none can provoke it except the south, and none 
will suffer as must the south. 

It would have been better policy in you to have 
passed " Mrs. Harriet Stowe " without notice. The 
lion rarely ever writhes if he has not received a 
dart. However, I have never read her works — 
have merely glanced at them — and have no sym- 
pathy with that manner of treating the subject. 
The question is pre-eminently one of potent facts, 
which are only deformed by any attempt to embel- 
lish them by fiction. You have very truthfully 
affirmed that the " domestic element of slavery," 
which you have substituted for the means God has 
appointed for Christian civilization, operates very 
slowly, and that " its effects are, for the most part, 
without observation." You have also, uninten- 
tionally no doubt, conceded an unquestionable 
fact, which is a standing refutation of your whole 
theory on this point; namely, "So unobserved is 
the influence of this element^ that I find but few, 
even among intelligent and practical men, who, be- 
fore their attention is particularly called to the 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 255 

subject, are aware of what it has already effected." 
(Page 246.) 

And it required even your eloquence, " in nu- 
merous pubhc addresses," to turn their attention 
to it, and to convince them that there is any reahty 
in the assumption ; and the proof is yet wanting, 
that when their attention was "particularly" di- 
rected to the question by your eloquence and zeal, 
they did not see a phantom created by the inter- 
ests they have in slavery, instead of a tangible 
fact. Be that as it may, the concession is ruinous 
to your creed. For here is a system, of civiliza- 
tion which has been in operation more than two 
centuries, and under its administration six genera- 
tions of human beings, numbering untold millions, 
have passed into eternity; and, according to your 
own showing, the approximation to Christian civili- 
zation, even in the very midst of a Christian coun- 
try, and all the appliances of Christianity, is " so 
slow and unobserved that even inteUigent and 
practical men can not see it till their attention is 
particularly called to the subject." 

To affirm that such a system is the one, and 
only one, the moral and intellectual wants of 
man, and especially the slave, demand, would be a 
gross offense against both truth and justice, and 
to maintain that it is the system God has or- 
dained — to the exclusion of the reading of his 

22 



256 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

own word — for that end would be blasphemy 
against the whole Christian system and its author. 
However, you again become hopeful, Doctor, 
and see hght in the future. The slaves are to be- 
come "educated" and to be "emancipated;" andj 
of course, without means or system of either edu- 
cation or emancipation, as you are decidedly op- 
posed to both. The system of slavery is to be 
greatly "modified," if not totally abohshed, by 
"colonization" and "amalgamation!" "Many of 
those who remain will, no doubt, amalgamate with 
the whites, however it may be in violation of the 
laws of civilization." (Page 253.) It may be 
supposed that the successful experiments which 
have been made, and that are still in progress on 
an enlarged scale, enable you to speak with con- 
fidence on the practicability of amalgamation. If 
there ever were doubts entertained on that sub- 
ject, the hundreds and thousands of cases in the 
south of slaves, in which the African blood has 
nearly disappeared, and the Anglo-Saxon been de- 
veloped, must "authoritatively settle that contro- 
versy." 

There is, however, a little drawback on this en- 
couraging prospect. This amalgamation process, 
instead of civilizing and elevating the Africans, 
that their blood may flow in the veins of freemen^ 
sinks the blood of the whites into the degradation 



AND PRACTICE OP SLAVERY- 257 

and barbarism of African slavery. Slavery is 
necessarily the antagonist of Christian civilization 
and of Christianity itself, and its legitimate 
tendency is to degrade, in the end, the slave and 
the enslaver. This "domestic element" gives the 
"patriarchal head "a fine opportunity to demon- 
strate, if he wishes to experiment, the practica- 
bility of amalgamation, and those well acquainted 
with the system of slavery need not be told that 
there are not wanting instances in which those 
"patriarchs" make merchandise of their offspring, 
and sell the "children of their own bowels" in the 
market, as they do their cotton, rice, and mules! 
Heaven holds the system responsible for all this 
inhumanity and moral corruption. 

Yours as ever, 

J. H. P. 



258 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 



LETTER XII. 

FRATERNAL SPIRIT OF ROMANISM AND SLAV- 
ERY—DUTIES OF MASTERS TO SLAVES. 

" The conservative influence of the African population on the 
south " — The south may be called upon to protect the liberties 
of the north — The north will never be called on to protect the 
south — The probabilities reversed — The analogy and sympathy be- 
tween Romanism and American slavery — In the event of revolu- 
tion — The case of foreign-born citizens and that of the slaves 
contrasted — " The duties of masters to their slaves '" — Some good 
advice — Will not be likely to be observed — Incongruities — Absurd- 
ities. 

Rev. Dr. W. A. Smith, — It is not strange that 
men, contemplating the same subject from oppo- 
site points, should entertain conflicting views, and 
arrive at different conclusions as to final results; 
nor is it to be supposed that the subject of slavery 
is an exception to this general fact. Your twelfth 
lecture, " The conservative influence of the Afri- 
can POPULATION ON THE SOUTH," is a striking exam- 
ple of the kind. Ignoring the admonitory record 
Ci history, the intellectual and moral constitution 
of man, and the sleepless demands of justice, and 
apparently bhnd to every thing that does not pat- 
ronize and support absolute slavery, you gravely 
read us the following strange homily : " It may be 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 259 

demonstrated that^ without a singular interposition 
of divine Providence, the south — using the term, as 
I generally do, for all those states which maintain 
the system of domestic slavery — will, erelong, be 
called upon to protect the liberties of the north 
from the progress of agrarianism, while there is 
not the remotest probability that these will ever 
be called on to protect the south from the insur- 
rectionary movements of the blacks." (Page 
258.) This is a bold and boastful thrusting of 
a most dehcate and exciting question before the 
public, which you may yet have reason to regret 
having done, and which nothing less than a convic- 
tion of duty to resist the aggressions, presump- 
tions^ and usurpations of slavery could induce me 
to discuss at this time. But if slavery and its 
advocates will peril its existence and the peace of 
the country by their unwarrantable pretensions, 
they must take the consequences. 

Now, sir, without intending to disparage your 
judgment in the case, there are millions of men in 
this republic much better quahfied to judge in 
this matter than you are, because they have no 
prejudice of education, sectional jealousies, pride 
of opinion, or interest in the system to bias their 
judgments in regard to the true character and 
position of slavery. Besides, they are better ac- 
quainted with the moral character of society and 



260 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

the state of public feeling in the north than you 
are, and are as well informed as you as to the gen- 
eral views of the south, who believe that, instead 
of "domestic slavery" being the great ^^conserva- 
tive principle" that is to "protect the north and 
save the nation, it is the exhaustless source of 
national strife, jealousy, alienation of confidence, 
sectional enmity, pohtical corruption and disunion, 
and a standing curse to the whole country ; and 
that there is no element, principle, or institution 
in being which so potently threatens the stability 
and perpetuity of our government and institutions 
of liberty as the system of American slavery. 
And, if we look at these opposite opinions in the 
light of fad^ the latter is sustained by the whole 
history of our country; while, in the same hght, 
your exorbitant claims for slavery approximate the 
hallucinations of a madman! 

Although you have quite exceeded yourself in 
eloquence in this lecture, you have given another 
proof that you either have an exceedingly bad 
cause, or that you are a very injudicious advocate 
in referring to Romanism in defense of the system 
of slavery. I am not insensible to the fact of the 
great accumulation of foreigners in our country, 
nor of the possible peril to our free and Protestant 
institutions from their moral character, and espe- 
cially that portion of them who are under the 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 261 

influence of Romanism, and are controlled by an 
unprincipled and despotic priesthood. This sub- 
ject has engaged my attention for years, and the 
progress of events has by no means diminished 
my apprehensions of evil from that source in the 
end. 

But how did you overlook the fact, Doctor, that 
in your eloquent description of the possible, not 
to say probable, evils and dangers of Romanism, 
you were exhibiting, as to all practical purposes, 
the counierpart of the system of American slav- 
ery? In painting, in glowing colors, the portrait 
of the '^man of sin'' — Romanism — in its threat- 
ening aspects, you have, inadvertently, drawn in 
no less lively colors the picture of what may be 
called pre-eminently the '^sin of man'' — American 
slavery, with its kindred results, of far more than 
possible evil! A mere sketch of the analogy is 
all that is necessary to identify their common 
paternity and intimate brotherhood. 

1. No fact is more legible in the records of 
history, than that Romanism originated in the lust 
of power in the few authoritatively to control the 
manij for the sole pleasure and profit of the former. 
Slavery has the same, and absolutely no other 
origin or existence. 

2. Romanism has been reared to its present ma- 
turity by the patronage and untiring vigilance of 



262 REVIEW OE THE PHILOSOPHY 

an interested priesthood. Slavery has reached its 
present magnitude by similar means. Hence your 
wrath and harmless ravings against the ministers 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the prin- 
ciples of Jefferson, for having " unsettled the faith 
of multitudes in the south," on the subject of 
slavery, and for having well-nigh razed the system 
from its foundation. And, doubtless, but for the 
patronage and support of other ministers, and 
"the great apostasy" of the ministers of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church in the south from 
primitive Methodism and the purity of the Gos- 
pel, on this subject, the cry of a slave under the 
gory lash of a heartless driver would not be heard 
this day in our land. 

3, Romanism is sustained by a ^' poUtico'iQ- 
hgious priesthood." "Louis Napoleon exercises 
despotic sway over a large portion of as free a peo- 
ple, in their opinions and sentiments on all subjects 
without the range of priestly dictation and dog- 
matism, as can be found on the globe ;" . . . 
"he needed the authority of the priesthood to 
enforce the pohtico-religious dogmas upon which 
alone his despotic throne could repose with safety!" 
. . . "and this is only an instance in which 
the genius of liberty is crushed and trodden 
under foot by the 'man of sin.'" (Page 267.) 
The main facts in this case, when applied to 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 263 

slavery, are true almost to the letter. "Slav- 
ery" — a comparative few men — "exercises des- 
potic sway over a large portion of as free a people 
in their opinion — without the range of the dicta- 
tion"— absolute control of their owners — "as can 
be found on the globe." "And this is only an 
instance in which the genius of liberty is crushed 
and trodden under foot by the ^sin of man'" — 
American slavery. You are doubtless correct in 
supposing that the despotism of Napoleon is sus- 
tained by the Roman priesthood of France, and it 
is equally true that the despotism of slavery is 
supported by the Protestant priesthood, or min- 
istry of America in the south. 

4. Romanism teaches " that it is a sin, involving 
the damnation of the soul, to read God's word, or 
to exercise private judgment upon any matters 
which such a priesthood may choose to affirm are 
taught therein." (Page 26G.) No tears can ever 
atone for the sin, or restitution repair the injury, 
or penitence obUterate the crime of Romanism for 
withholding the Bible from its ignorant and de- 
graded victims. But this is precisely one of the 
execrable sins of slavery, withholding the word of 
God and shutting up the milhons of its victims in 
moral and spiritual darkness. 

5. Romanism claims to supply the place of the 

infalUhle word of God by the offices and teaching 
28 



264 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

of her priesthood. Slavery has committed the 
same ofTense by excluding the light of letters, and 
sealing the word of life from the minds of the mill- 
ions of its human chattels. Both are chargeable 
with the sin of thrusting aside the infallible teach- 
ings of God^s tvord, and of substituting a fallihle 
worm of earth in the person of a Roman priest 
or Protestant minister, as the chief medium of 
communication between immortal spirits and the 
great Jehovah! And they are both chargeable 
with the same falsehood in professing to believe 
that the Bible teaches their dogmas; and with the 
absurdity of refusing to allow those most inter- 
ested — their enslaved victims — light and knowl- 
edge enough to read the record for themselves, 
and there learn to submit with patience to the op- 
pressions of their divinely-appointed oppressors! 

6. The fact is as notorious as the existence of 
Romanism, that it is sternly opposed to popular edu- 
cation. The perpetuity of its being • depends on 
the ignorance of its subjects. The light of a sound, 
popular education, penetrating and elevating the 
minds of the masses, would banish it from the 
earth. Your learned lecture, already reviewed, 
against educating the slaves, is proof in point of 
the fraternal relations and common sympathies of 
the two systems on that subject. 

7. Romanism has always sought to secure its 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 265 

object— the absolute control of its subjects — by 
subjecting the civil power to its dictation; and 
when it failed in that, or the civil power was too 
tardy for its purposes, it resorted to the violence 
of moJbocracy. Slavery in this is its exact counter- 
part. History has already recorded the facts to be 
read in all the future, that since the " great south- 
ern apostasy," and the despotic attempt to expel 
the Methodist Episcopal Church from the slave- 
holding states, when the forms of law would not 
serve the purpose, unoftending citizens and pious 
ministers have been mobbed, in the face of law and 
justice, for no other crime than that of not defend- 
ing slavery ; and the mobocrats knew they had the 
countenance and sympathies of those who professed 
to be the saints of God; and not a few of those 
deeds of violence and blood would be fully worthy 
the diabolical inquisition of Rome! ' And to-day it 
is doubtful which would be martyred first, the 
faithful minister of Christ who would go into the 
metropolis of the "mother of harlots" and teach 
the slaves of "his holiness" to read the Bible and 
to preach to them " the truth as it is in Jesus," or 
the minister who would do the same thing to the 
slaves in the south. 

8. Although in some things there is a partial 
difference in the mode of operation between Ro- 
manism and slavery, there is a perfect agreement 



266 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

as to the principle. The former seeks its object 
by controlHng the body through the darkness and 
ignorance of the mind and conscience; the latter, 
in controlling the mind and conscience to uncom- 
plaining submission, by enslaving the body, s® that 
the result in both cases is the enslavement of the 
whole man, soul and body, to a heartless des- 
potism. 

9. Romanism is the sworn enemy of a free press. 
Its whole history is a record of this fact. Con- 
scious that its deep corruption and its odious 
claims to power could not bear the developments 
of truth, or the scrutiny of free discussion, its 
energies have ever been directed to conceal the 
one and to suppress and crush out the other. The 
record of Rome, in this respect, is but the history 
of the system of slavery in this country. It has 
mobbed presses, indicted religious newspapers as 
"nuisances," and driven honorable men from their 
lawful business for the crime of having on sale a 
few books of an antislavery character; and at this 
hour a man would attempt to establish a free press 
in the south, to discuss the question of slavery, at 
the peril of his life. 

10. Romanism has exerted its powers steadily 
to prostitute the civil governments to its purposes 
of corruption and despotism. It has threatened 
and dethroned rulers, absolved subjects from their 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 267 

allegiance to rightful governments^ fomented dis- 
content, excited revolutions, and spread the deso- 
lations of war over whole kingdoms. 

The system of American slavery has given 
unmistakable evidence of the same spirit. Its al- 
most superhuman struggles for control in the 
national councils and legislation ; its success in the 
enactment of the "Fugitive-Slave law," by which 
every freeman may be required, by an irresponsi- 
ble, petty upstart of a marshal, to become "a 
slave-catcher," and the army and navy of the na- 
tion are rendered tributary to its power to enforce 
its claims ! And wherever its exorbitant demands 
are not conceded, and its imperious dictations 
obeyed, it thunders from its throne — its Ameri- 
can ^'Vatican" — dissolution! dissolution of the 
Union!] Not to name others, these facts, with 
the "Dred Scott" decision of a Roman Catholic, 
a Jesuit judge, demonstrate the common sympa- 
thy and brotherhood of the two systems of Ro- 
manism and American slavery. There are other 
points of agreement not less striking; but, keeping 
this fearful similarity of the systems in view, I 
pass to notice the possible results to this republic. 
It is a fact of universal notoriety, that these are 
the two great disturbing elements of the tranquil- 
hty of this nation. Slavery is patent, and lies 
mainly on the surface, in all its repulsive deformity, 



268 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

boldly asserting its claims, and urging its way to 
universal patronage. Romanism is latent, and is 
laying its plans, and endeavoring to effect its ob- 
ject, as far as may be, unobserved by the public 
eye, till it can reach a position, political and other- 
wise, from which it can make its power be felt, and 
boldly and publicly assert its claims to national 
patronage. Every well-informed friend of freedom 
in the land feels an abiding and growing conviction 
that both of those despotisms are alike antago- 
nistic to enlightened liberty, just government, and 
free Protestant institutions. The indications are 
too clear to be mistaken that the isffue is already 
joined, and unless it is withdrawn, or the positions 
changed, the conflict, which will either bury those 
despotisms or freedom in this country, is inevitable. 
Will the friends of humanity and justice aban- 
don their claim for the " inalienable right of life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for every 
man in this land? If they do, or fail to prosecute 
it in the name and fear of God, and in the face of 
all the consequences that Providence may permit 
to attend it, they will not only extinguish the ris- 
ing hope of the oppressed milKons of mankind, 
but merit the unmitigated execrations of the race, 
if not the retributive curse of Heaven. Will they 
do it? No, never, while the earth moves, and 
while the sun shines in the heavens ! Will those 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 269 

despotisms withdraw their preposterous claims to 
enslave, degrade, and ruin immortal beings, and 
will they allow this republic to repose in peace and 
to advance in prosperity ? The indications are any 
thing but flattering, and especially in regard to 
slavery. The object of its infatuated advocates is 
to extend its area, till slavery becomes national 
and freedom sectional. If it persists in this, noth- 
ing but a miracle from Heaven can prevent col- 
lision, bloodshed, and civil war. What are the 
chances for the issue to be changed? This ques- 
tion is not without some hght in most of its as- 
pects except that of slavery. 

1. God has planted in the constitution of man 
an inextinguishable desire for liberty, the posses- 
sion and use of property, and the love of local hab- 
itation — the love of home. Every man desires to 
be lord of himself — as far as human institutions 
are concerned — his home and his means, however 
rude or limited. This is seen in the history of the 
race, and in every condition of life, from the love 
of possession and use of the rude bow and arrow 
of the untutored children of the forest, to the mill- 
ions of a Rothschild and the crown and dignity 
of a throne. The existence and development of 
this principle, under the means Providence has ap- 
pointed, constitute the foundation of Christian 
civilization, the elevation of humanity, and the 



270 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

stability and perpetuity of human society and 
government. 2. The genius of our civil govern- 
ment and Christian institutions allows the largest 
liberty and widest range for the exercise and prac- 
tical application of this principle. 3. The more 
intelligent part of the foreign population in this 
country, not excepting the Roman Cathohc ele- 
ment, are every day learning the importance of 
those facts, and are availing themselves of their 
advantages by procuring the right of soil, becom- 
ing freeholders, establishing business, improving 
shops, farms, and family residences; and thus de- 
veloping the principle of the love of possession, 
home, and locality. 4. They are also learning 
that these rights and privileges of freemen can 
not be enjoyed in peace and safety without just 
and equal laws and government; and that these 
can not be secured and sustained in a republic like 
ours without intelligence and virtue in the masses 
of the people. 5. That in any violent revolutions 
they must inevitably be the greatest sufferers; 
hence, the law of their nature — self-preservation — 
the love of home, reverence for the dust of de- 
parted parents, dear companions, and loved chil- 
dren already buried about their habitations — all 
bind them to the soil as their permanent home 
and that of their children, and identify their high- 
est interests with the national peace and prosperity. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 271 

With these facts before us, the conclusion is rea- 
sonable, and is sustained by the testimony of his- 
tory, that, in the event of civil commotion, all 
these principles and interests would nerve them 
with their benefactors to repel, at the peril of their 
lives, a usurping or invading enemy. 

This reasonable result can only be prevented 
by the supreme depravity of demagogues under 
the guise of statesmen, and friends of the people, 
tampering with the foreign element in the body- 
politic for selfish and corrupt purposes. And even 
that can not occur but by the unpardonable negli- 
gence of the friends of freedom to diffuse the light 
of a sound education among the masses of the 
people. I now turn to the case of the slaves. In 
view of a possible violent coHision of despotism 
and liberty in this country, you congratulate the 
south on account of its safety through the means 
of slavery! "The conservative influence, there- 
fore, of the African race — the slaves — in the 
southern states, I set down as a fixed fad, for 
which, in the prospective condition of the countr}^, 
we have abundant cause to be devoutly thankful 
to almighty God." 

And then, sir, as if, in the midst of your devo- 
tions, your eloquence had caught fire and dashed 
off as an unmanageable steed, leaving truth and 
your Christian charity out of sight in the chase, 



272 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

you overwhelm us with — "How madly do they 
reason who, by a cordon of free-soil states, on the 
west and south, would shut up the southern 
states — as if, with bolts and bars, they would cage 
a savage beast! False phDosophers! Enemies 
alike to justice and humanity! Worse than Na- 
dab and Abihu, in the repubhc of Moses! Kin- 
dred to Ahitophel and Judas, and, in later days, 
to Benedict Arnold!" (Page 274.) Finding to 
our great delight, as a '^ fixed fad^'' that we actu- 
ally do survive the shock of this terrible avalanche, 
and with a little time to tranquilize our startled 
nerves, and passing by the late and interesting 
discovery of "the republic of Moses!" we resume 
the question of the "conservative influence of 
slavery." 

And, 1. The slaves have the same natural con- 
stitution common to man — the desire for liberty, 
the love of home, and the possession and use of 
means for their comfort and happiness; but the 
slave system positively and perpetually prohibits 
all these to the slaves. Hence, 2. As they can 
not own any thing on earth, and are themselves 
owned as chattel property, they have no home to 
love, or interests in the soil to defend, under the 
system of slavery; even the dust of their dead is 
scattered, as by the hands of desolation, over the 
whole surface of the slaveholding states. True, 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY, 273 

they have some local attachments from habit, but 
not from interest; and the little "patches" they 
are allowed for their own use to cultivate, mostly 
on Sunday, when they should be worshiping their 
Maker, is the veriest mockery of justice, morality, 
and God. 3. With no right of soil, home, fire- 
side, family or any other personal interest, belong- 
ing to their condition as slaves, to defend, their 
case forms a perfect contrast to that of the vic- 
tims of the element of despotism among the 
foreign population in this country. In the latter, 
the most potent circumstances tend steadily to 
identify their own highest interests with the peace 
and prosperity of the nation, and to nerve them 
in the hour of peril in defense of the national in- 
terests, as the only means of securing their own 
personal rights and privileges. In the former 
case— that of the slaves— the most powerful cir- 
cumstances operate directly the reverse. They feel 
as far as they have light. — and it is increasing 
every day— to know the facts, that they have no 
interests in a government and institutions which 
have worn out in the degradations of slavery, and 
buried, but one remove from barbarism, six genera- 
tions of their ancestors, and that are performing 
the same operation on them, and that have doomed 
their unborn posterity to the same infamy. And, 
with what light they have, they know perfectly 



274 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

that no revolution in this or any other government 
can really make their condition worse than it now 
is. They are absolute slaves now and their 
children after them, and it can be no worse in any 
event, and if revolution produced change at all it 
must be for their benefit. And, now, suppose the 
crisis had arrived, which you have presumed more 
than possible, and the population of the free states 
were arrayed in the strife of arms, and, as you 
have kindly proposed, the south by her arms 
should assume the arbitership and the protectorate 
of freedom in the north, who would constitute your 
forces ? 

Would you send an army of slaves to quell the 
rebels? You would as soon think of reposing 
peacefully amid the tensors of an earthquake! 
Would you call out the strength of the free white 
population, and leave your aged and infirm, your 
wives and children in the midst of miUions of ig- 
norant and excited slaves? For you might as 
well attempt to chain the waves of the sea as to 
preserve the south — slaves and all — from excite- 
ment at such a crisis. And you need not be told 
that in such a conflict there would not be wanting 
men, in your own midst, to kindle the fires of re- 
volt and insurrection, and to fill the minds of the 
ignorant slaves with the intoxicating idea of chang- 
ing positions with their owners, till their infatu- 



AND PKACTICE OF SLAVERY 275 

ation and fury would become resistless and the 
desolations irreparable! There is no portion of 
the people of this whole land whose position would 
be so perilous, or who would be more helpless than 
the slaveholding south, if such a day should ever 
come, which may Heaven in mercy forbid! Who 
knows better than yourself that the whispers of an 
insurrectionary movement among the slaves can, 
in forty-eight hours, wrap the south in the horrors 
of a panic, which, though felt, can never be de- 
scribed? And yet, sk, so great is your infatuation 
that you boastingly assert that slavery is the 
"conservative element" which is to protect the 
free states, and to save the republic, and then in- 
sult the intelligence of the country by charging 
those who differ from you with crime and treason, 
even "worse than Nadab, Abihu, Ahitophel, Ju- 
das, and Benedict Arnold! !" If that ever-to-be- 
deprecated day should come, what many will call 
"your insolence to freemen" will have its full 
share in provoking it. The intense absurdity of 
such vain boasting is too transparent to command 
respect. The infatuation may be pitied, but the 
presumption can scarcely be pardoned. 

I turn now to your thirteenth and last lecture : 
"The duties of masters to their slaves." As it 
contains nothing particular as to the moral charac- 
ter of the system, I will only notice it so far as to 



276 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

show the power of slavery to involve a great man, 
when he attempts to defend it, in humiliating in- 
consistencies. I award to you, however, the credit 
of more method in this than all your other lec- 
tures. You divide the subject into, "1. The duty 
of masters to their slaves as their money; 2. As 
social beings; and, 3. As religious beings." This 
lecture is long, and contains some good advice ; but 
it is doubtful whether it will be fully appreciated 
and observed by those to whom it is addressed. 
Indeed, as you have performed the work of defend- 
ing the system to the best of your abiUties — the 
matter the "masters" are most concerned about — 
and have made it a very godly and "patriarchal 
institution," and have received their thanks, you 
may think yourself favored if some of them do 
not laugh at, if not in their hearts despise, your 
pious and patriarchal admonitions. However, I 
will still hope your godly labors in that direction 
will have some good influence. According to the 
doctrines of this lecture "property, money," ^^ so- 
cial beings," and "religious beings" are converti- 
ble terms. The property and the social and re- 
ligious beings are precisely one and the same 
thing — the slave — and the social and religious 
beings and the money are exactly the same — the 
slave. We may then, with entire propriety and 
logical exactness, talk of social and religious mo- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 277 

ney, and. of course, moneij that is both social and re- 

ligious! This is not all. This "social and rehgious 

money should be subjected to only reasonable labor ;'' 

should have " suitable tools and implements ;" 

for "with sharp instruments, and those of the best 
kind, labor is no longer such drudgery" with this 
singular kind of "money." Not to pursue the 
subject further in that direction, to say the least 
this is a marvelous kind of money 1 

But let us glance at this beautiful picture of 
prO"Slaveryism from another point. As the substi- 
tution of "money" for "social and rehgious be- 
ings" is so harmonious and classical, it will be 
equally so to employ " social and rehgious beings" 
in those places in the Bible where it recognizes the 
use of " money." Abraham said, " Entreat for me 
to Ephron, that he may give me the cave of Mach- 
pelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his 
field, for as much mone?/ [that is, ' social and re- 
hgious beings'] as it is worth." Again, "Joseph 
commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and re- 
store every man's money [^social and religious 
beings'] into his sack." And as one of them 
open°ed his sack to give his ass provender in the 
inn, he espied his money—" social and rehgious be- 
ings—in his sack's mouth 1 " That he might give 
no offense as to tribute, Jesus directed Peter—" Go 
thou to the sea, and cast a hook and take up the 



278 KEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast 
opened his mouth thou shalt find a piece of mo^zey^ 
[^social and rehgious heings:'] that [them] take 
and give unto them for me and thee," as tribute 
money. 

This is only a brief specimen of the incongrui- 
ties which slavery can compel men— otherwise of 
good sense — to involve themselves in for attempt- 
ing to support and defend the system. My regard 
for you personally, however, restrains me from giv- 
ing a fuU-length portrait of this wonderful lecture; 
and as I have now passed through your lectures, 
and shown, beyond successful contradiction, that 
they commenced in radical error, and progressed 
in confusion and contradiction, and closed in absurd- 
ities, I dismiss your book, intending, however, soon 
to call your attention to another view of the "pe- 
culiar institution." 

Still remaining yours, as ever, 

J. H. R 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 279 



LETTER XIII. 

THE OLD TESTAMENT AND SLAVERY. 

The system of American slavery examined in the light of the Old 
Testament Scriptures — Abraham and slavery — Slavery and the 
Decalogue — The Hebrew code and slavery — The twenty-fifth chap- 
ter of Leviticus and slavery — If slavery existed among the He- 
brews with the Divine approbation, it was either a part of their 
institutions, or it was not — If the latter, slavery is not honest in 
quoting it as a part of their code — If the former, it was abolished 
by Divine authority with their whole system, and can afford no 
support to slavery. 

Rev. Dr. W. A. Smith, — Although I have res- 
cued the Scriptures, as far as your lectures are 
concerned, from all suspicion of supporting slavery, 
yet, from the studied effort that has been and is 
still being made to bribe or torture the Bible to 
testify in its fxvor, I have reserved a more formal 
examination of the relation of American slavery 
to the Divine record for a separate place. I shall 
consider its relation first to the Old and then to 
the New Testament Scriptures. 

First, As Abraham is supposed to have been a 

model slaveholder, and is the first case mentioned 

in the Old Testament, it claims attention as first 

in order. 1. It is of paramount importance to 

24 



280 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

keep in view the fact that unless the text^ in its 
legitimate connection, absolutely requires that serv- 
ant must mean a ^'chattel in the hands of an 
owner,''' it affords no kind of support to the system 
of "chattel slavery." 2. It is no less important 
to understand the whole character of Abraham, 
and the light in which he was viewed by the pubUc 
in his day. There is not a particle of proof in the 
whole case that he was a slave-dealer, bartering in 
the markets for human beings as chattels or mer- 
chandise. The imputation, in any form, is but 
little less than a grossly-ignorant or wicked slan- 
der. On the contrary, he was every-where distin- 
guished for his intelligence, wisdom, justice, benev- 
olence, and piety, which, with the special favor of 
God on his faith, rendered his patronage and pro- 
tection as a counselor and chief peculiarly desirable. 
Hence, instead of being recognized as a slave mer- 
chant, when he sought a burying-place for his de- 
ceased companion at "Hebron, in the land of 
Canaan, the children of Heth answered Abraham, 
saying unto him, Hear us, my lord; thou art a 
mighty prince among us: [margin, a prince of 
God{\ in the choice of our s-epulchers bury thy 
dead." Gen. xxiii, 6, 6. With such a public rep- 
utation, and the state of society then existing, it 
was perfectly natural that not a few would identify 
their interests with his, and become subordinate 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 281 

to his counsel and the authority of his leadership; 
and, according to the tenor of this subordinate re- 
lation to " a mighty prince^' they were his servants. 
3. With this view fully agrees the first account we 
have in the Bible of Abraham's servants. When 
he learned that predatory kings had captured and 
carried off Lot and his family, " Abraham armed 
his trained"— instructed and proved— " servants, 
born in his house"— the young men, as they are 
termed in the sequel, of those famiUes attached to 
him for mutual security and benefit^-" three hun- 
dred and eighteen, and pursued them," and retook 
the captives. Gen. xiv, 14. If these "serv- 
ants"— "young men" — were absolute slaves, and 
their persons constituted the principal part of 
Abraham's " chattel wealth;' and if they, or any 
part of them, might be sold in the slave-market 
the same day they returned to pay expenses, it 
might be, of this military excursion, how su- 
premely absurd is the supposition that they 
would peril their own lives to rescue others from 
the same, or probably less, oppressive condition 
than that in which themselves were in, and then 
voluntarily return to their former degradation of 
chattel slciverij! Where is the slave-dealer in all 
the land who would arm three or four hundred 
of his slaves even to defend his own house, cotton 
or rice-field, much less to pursue an enemy into a 



282 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

foreign state, when a mere whisper, that the slaves 
are conceahng fire-arms and deadly weapons, will 
throw the whole south into consternation? 4. It 
is worthy of special observation that no where arc 
his servants referred to as constituting any part of 
the riches of Abraham, which could not be the 
case if they had been considered property — " chat- 
tels in his hands as their owner," as is literally the 
fact in the case of slaveholders. When his dis- 
tinction for wealth is the subject, it is said, " Abra- 
ham was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." 
Not the most remote intimation that servants — 
slaves — formed any part of his riches. When he 
is to be distinguished for both riches and honor y 
" the oldest servant of his house, that " — unlike a 
slave who himself is property — "ruled over all 
that he had," . . . "for all the goods of 
Abraham were in his hands," said, " I am Abra- 
ham's servant. And the Lord hath blessed my 
master greatly ; and he is become great : and he 
hath given him flocks, and herds, and silver, and 
gold, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and 
camels, and asses." Gen. xxiv, 34, 35. He is 
great in honor, having many subordinates attached 
to his person, and voluntarily serving him for just 
compensation; and many attached to him as their 
counselor and ruler, from mutual interests : he is 
great in riches, of flocks, herds, silver, and gold. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY 



283 



This is the true character and position of Abraham, 
the "friend of God," elevated as high above that 
of a slave-breeder and a slave-monger as true dig- 
nity, piety, and justice are above villainy, cupidity, 
and cruelty. 5. In the hght of these facts and 
legitimate conclusions, it will not be difficult to 
understand those incidents in his history relied on 
by pro-slaveryists in support of their system. He 
had servants bought with his money as well as 
those born in his house. " He that is born in thy 
house, and he that is bought with thy money, 
must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall 
be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant." 
Gen. xvii, 13. This Scripture is quite formidable 
to the opposers of slavery, when interpreted by 
the operations of the slave markets of the south. 
It brings up the great idea of the whole machinery 
of southern slavery, with its slave-breeders, slave- 
speculators, slave-prisons, chains, handcuffs, drivers, 
and gory lashes, in glorious array to their patri- 
archal minds with the devout and venerable Abra- 
ham as the great exemplar.! That some may be 
silly enough to suppose they have the example of 
this man of God in this ungodly business I will 
not deny; but that men of intelligence and hon- 
esty should set up any such claim is inexplicable 
on any other ground than that of the power of 
slavery to prostitute both inteUigence and integ- 



284 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

rity. When this case is considered in its connec- 
tion with the divinely-approved character of Abra- 
ham, the design of God in raising him up as 
the father of his pecuhar people, to whom he 
was, in the midst of the most terrible grandeur, to 
reveal his moral law of universal ohligation, and 
also the character of that law, that it lays death — 
as will be seen presently — at the very foundation 
of slavery, injustice, and oppression of every kind, 
the idea of slavery in its chattel form vanishes as 
a polluted ghost, and leaves the facts in their un- 
distorted form. It has been shown that " servants 
born in his house," not only does not involve the 
element of chattel slavery, but, in its connection, 
necessarily excludes the idea; while being " bought 
with his money," can mean nothing more than 
procuring services for just compensation, unless 
this sohtary item is made to contradict the whole 
tenor of the history, the character of Abraham, 
the purposes of divine Providence, and the spirit 
and letter of the law of God. This view is con- 
firmed by the fact that those "servants born in 
his house, and bought with his money," were 
taken into visible covenant relation with God, and 
the seal of his " everlasting covenant was in their 
flesh" precisely as in the case of Abraham him- 
self; they were protected by the same law, in- 
structed in the same religion by the same means^ 



AND PRACTICE OP SLAVERY. 285 

and allowed all the advantages of the education 
and literature of the times just as was their rela- 
tive superior, all which facts demonstrate that, 
whatever might be the character of this servitude 
and subordination, it was in every essential point 
the direct opposite of American slavery, which de- 
nies its victims all these privileges, not excepting 
knowledge sufficient to read the Bible, and allows 
them no light even on matters pertaining to their 
eternal interests except through the lips of a priest- 
hood subordinate to the pro-slavery power. The 
attempt to find a parallel between the case of 
Abraham and that of the southern slaveholders is 
preposterous in the extreme ! and betrays a great 
want of either candor or knowledge. As his case 
is the most hopeful to sustain slavery previously 
to the giving of the law, and as that, upon exam- 
ination, has proved an entire failure, I need not 
notice others of the same period which are less 
clear and of far less importance. I turn now to the 
constitution of God's moral government among 
men — the decalogue, or ten commandments. 

Second. Hebrew servitude, or, in your misuse of 
terms, '^ Hebrew slavery." 1. As the tenth article 
of the decalogue prohibits the sin of coveting " thy 
neighbor's house," his "wife," or his "servant," the 
astonishing claim is set up, by the defenders of 
slavery, that it is of the same Divine origin, ex- 



286 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

tent, and duration as the marriage relation, and 
the law of the ten commandments! and that, if 
slavery should cease, that part of the article re- 
lating to it would be void; but, as no part of the 
law can become a nullity, therefore slavery must 
be perpetual. 2. This argument wholly "begs the 
question" by assuming, not only without evidence 
or reason, but in the face of both, that "servant'' 
in the text means a slave, in the sense, and onli/ 
in the sense of a chattel in the hands of an abso- 
lute oivner. I have proved, and you have conceded, 
that the "term servant, as correctly translated 
from the original Scriptures, is generic," and as 
such contains species under it, as the "servants" 
of a king— his subjects— "hired servants," and 
"bond servants," in none of which is there the 
shadow of the right of property in their persons, 
claimed by those they serve as their relative su- 
periors; while this right of property in the per- 
son of the slave alone constitutes its species, and 
specific characteristic difierence from all other spe- 
cies of human servitude and subordination. This 
fact demands the special attention of all who would 
understand the subject. Each species belonging 
to this genus is distinguished by the tenor of the 
relative subordination, the limitation of the time 
of service, the character of the service to be per- 
formed, or other conditions equally clear, all, how- 



AND PKACTICE OF SLAVERY. 287 

ever, limiting the time, and absolutely excluding the 
right of j)ropertg in the 'person of the subordinate; 
but, in direct opposition to all other species, the 
very being of the slavery species consists in the 
UNLIMITED time of service and the absolute right 

OF PROPERTY IN THE ENTIRE PERSON OF THE SLAVE. 

Hence this boasted argument, which is becoming 
a kind of "watchword" with divines in the south, 
is as destitute of dignity as of truth, for it virtu- 
ally begs "Pray, sir, do allow me, if you please, 

without questioning either its truth or justice^ the 
benefit of this monstrous assumption, that servant 
m the tenth article of the decalogue means noth- 
ing more nor less than a slave, and that it always 
does mean a slave, in whose person— soul, body, and 
spirit— the owner has an absolute right of prop- 
erty in the strict chattel form; then, I can make 
out a pretty fair case for slavery with those whose 
ignorance or interest disqualifies them to judge; 
b'lit if you deny me this assumption, which never 
can be proved, you not only deprive me of the 
chief support from holy Scripture, but go very far 
toward convicting me of ignorance or imposture 1" 
3. This commandment is worthy its divine Author, 
and promotive of the interests of the whole race, 
when rightly understood, as utterly excluding the 
doctrine of human chattels in the persons of slaves, 
and as applying to those in the various sub- 

25 



2B8 



REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 



ordinate relations of human society so important 
to the interests of all concerned. In every de- 
partment of society, servants or subordinates may 
be objects of covetousness, not because they are 
slaves or chattel propertij, but because they could 
be vastly useful to covetous and avaricious persons 
in a similar business relation. In this view, as 
matter of fact, the Divine prohibition has constant 
application even where slavery never existed, and 
where it is permanently excluded by positive en- 
actments, and such will always be the fact till all 
men learn to fear God and love righteousness. 
Hence, to assum.e the necessity of perpetual, in- 
voluntary slavery in its chattel form, in order to 
perpetuate the application and authority of the 
Divine law, betrays an inconsistency, ignorance, or 
depravity which belongs alone to the defense of 
American slavery. 4. It is a plain rule of law 
and of common-sense, that to ascertain the true 
meaning of any document, such parts as are ob- 
scure must he interpreted by those that are plain 
and intelligible, provided such interpretation makes 
good sense and agrees with the main object of the 
instrument. This rule applies, in all* its force, to 
the interpretation of holy Scripture. And it may 
be affirmed, with the utmost confidence, that the 
interpretation or application of any portion of 
Scripture that plainly contradicts either of the ten 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 289 

•commandments, or any interpretation or applica- 
tion of one of the commandments wliicli contra- 
dicts or positively nullifies another of them, which 
is perfectly plain, is beyond all doubt radically 
false and ruinous to sound morals. This charge, 
without any extenuation whatever, lies against the 
interpretation, or rather perversion, of the tenth 
article of the law of God by slavery-defending 
divines. The moral principle of the fifth com- 
mandment, with its reciprocal obligations and du- 
ties, enters into the very foundation of human 
society, and is the source of those social and do- 
mestic attachments and sympathies essential to 
civihzation, and without which Christianity can 
have no existence in its true character. "Honor 
thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be 
long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth 
thee," and, as applied by Paul, " Honor thy father 
and mother, (which is the first commandment with 
promise,) that it may be well with thee, and thou 
mayest live long in the earth," is a divine law of 
universal application and perpetual obligation, so 
clear and positive that no comment can make it 
plainer. To meet and comply with its obhgations 
in any inteUigible and acceptable form the donm- 
tic relaiiom, as established by Divine authority, of 
husband and wife, parents and children, must be 
held absolutely sacred and be protected by all the 



290 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

authority of civilized and Christian society. With- 
out this protection^ and where sexual intercourse 
is promiscuous, and where no child can know his 
paternal relations, and where every member of such 
promiscuous families, from the reputed father to 
the child of an hour old, is liable under the sys- 
tem of slave laws to be torn away and sold as a 
chattel — obedience to this Divine command is, ta 
all intents and purposes, impossible. Hence, to 
interpret servant, in the tenth article of the deca- 
logue, to mean slave — chattel i^roperti/ — ignores 
and outrages the domestic relations which God has 
ordained, and by an invincible necessity contra- 
dicts, nullifies, and renders forever void the fifth 
commandment as to all the millions of the enslaved ! 
The same facts and conclusions apply with equal 
force to the provisions of the seventh command- 
ment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." The 
system of American slavery perfectly nullifies this 
article, and the protection of the relations of hus- 
band and wife, as God has appointed, would forever 
nullify the system of slavery. Therefore, as sure 
as the decalogue can not contradict itself, and one 
part nullify another, but is pure, just, and good, it 
not only positively repudiates slavery, but stands 
an eternal record and witness against the presump- 
tion and depravity of the whole system. 5. This 
pro-slavery interpretation is not onJy assuming, in- 



AND PEACTICE OF SLAVERY. 291 

consistent, and contradictory, but grossly absurd. 
It claims that unless servant, in the text, means 
slave, and slave means the absolute bondage of a 
human being as a chattel in the hands of an owner, 
the law must fail for want of an object on which to 
operate ; hence the necessity for a system of slav- 
ery as perpetual as the obhgations of the decalogue ! 
The plain meaning of the text is a universal pro- 
hibition of the sin of covetousness, and has no 
more to do with sanctioning slavery than it has 
with authorizing horse-stealing or murder ! Try it 
in another case ; the divine Savior universally pro- 
hibited the sin of retaliation. It was said in his 
day, '^ Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine 
enemy; but I say unto you, love your enemies, 
bless them that curse you, do good to them that 
hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use 
you and persecute you." This command is as di- 
vine, authoritative, universal, and perpetual as the 
decalogue ; and should the sins there specified ever 
cease, according to this interpretation, the com- 
mand would be an utter nullity for want of ob- 
jects to operate on. Therefore, precisely the same 
exposition that would make slavery a divine insti- 
tution under the tenth article of the decalogue, 
would make despiteful treatment, hating, persecu- 
ting, and cursing the pious institutions of God, of 
universal and perpetual obligation ! ! I have now 



292 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

shown clearly, first, that the provisions of the ar- 
ticle in the decalogue can be fiilfilled to the letter, 
to the absolute exclusion of the system of slavery. 
Secondly, that all the apparent support derived 
from this source is the bare assumption, in the 
face of facts to the contrary, that " servant," in 
the text, means an absolute slave^ whose person is 
a chattel in the hands of his owner. Thirdly, if 
this were allowed it would contradict and nul- 
lify, beyond the power of reconciliation, the fifth 
and seventh commandments of the Divine law. 
Fourthly, that the same rule of explanation would 
make hating, persecuting, and cursing divine 
ordinances as perpetual as Christianity I As the 
decalogue is the constitution of God's moral gov- 
ernment of man, emanating directly from himself, 
recognized and virtually re-enacted by the divine 
Savior; and as this moral constitution is of uni- 
versal apphcation and perpetual obligation, and 
most distinctly recognizes, as of Divine appoint- 
ment, the domestic relations in all their sacredness, 
with their reciprocal obligations and duties ; and as 
the protection of those relations and the perform- 
ance of their duties absolutely exclude the idea of 
slavery from this Divine law — the legitimate con- 
clusion, and, indeed, the only one the facts will 
allow, is, that God has no where made provision for 
or recognized chattel slavery with approbation; but. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 293 

on the contrary, has authoritatively excluded it 
from the universal organic law of his moral gov- 
ernmentj and that he only tolerates it as he does 
other enormous sins, till the time of retributive 
visitation and judgment. Having shown with a 
clearness equal to demonstration itself, that the 
moral law of the ten commandments either con- 
tradicts, nulhfies, and destroys itself, or that slav- 
ery is wholly excluded from its provisions, and 
positively condemned as an impostor by its au- 
thority, I proceed to examine the subject of He- 
brew servitude under this great moral charter. 

Third. The conclusion is legitimate that, as 
God excluded chattel slavery from patriarchal gov- 
ernment — from Abraham to Moses — and from the 
decalogue, the moral code of the Hebrews, he no 
where else made provision for the institution, and 
that the system has no sanction in the Old Testa- 
ment. However, I will notice the strongest case 
of Hebrew servants, and the one most relied on 
to support American slavery: "Both thy bond- 
men and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, 
shall be of the heathen that are round about you ; 
of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. 
Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do 
sojourn among you, of them shall you buy, and of 
their families that are with you, which they begat 
in your land; and they shall be your possession. 



294 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your 
children after yon, to inherit them for a posses- 
sion; they shall be your bondmen forever." Lev. 
XXV, 44-46. If this Scripture does not sustain 
American slavery it certainly has no support in the 
whole Bible, for there is nothing half so plausible 
in the entire book. 

1. The distinct question now is, whether the 
Old Testament sanctions and sustains the doctrine 
of voluntary and limited service, or involuntary^ 
absolute^ and perpetual slavery in its chattel form. 
That both can be true, as to the same persons, is 
literally impossible. That slavery existed among 
the heathen in the latter sense is not a question; 
but did God allow and sanction it in any of its 
essential principles among his peculiar people? 
You assert that God provided "in the Jewish con- 
stitution " for two distinct forms of domestic slav- 
ery among the Hebrews, "the one^ the enslavement, 
in the true generic sense, of Hebrew^s in given cir- 
cumstances, for a definite period; and the other, 
the enslavement, in the same sense, of the neigh- 
boring \\Q^i\iQxi,m perpetuity'" — page 143 — but of 
the truth of this you have totally failed to furnish 
the proof You have distinctly admitted what, 
indeed, no scholar will deny, that the term "serv- 
ant,'' as translated from the original Scriptures, 
'Hs generic;'' and, as a genus is necessarily of 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 295 

greater extent than a species, hence your assertion 
is contradicted by the very facts you adduce. 
You have cited several cases of Hebrew servitude, 
each of which has its characteristic distinction as 
a species belonging to the ^emts — servant; but 
neither of them contains the least element of slav- 
ery; namely, the right of property in the person of 
the slave as a chattel in the hands of his oivner. 
Here is your capital blunder, and that of the whole 
pro-slavery school, when attempting to press the 
Bible into the service of the system, in making 
slavery, in its chattel form, a genus, and every 
kind of subordination and service a species and a 
mere degree or grade of slavery. In all cases of 
Hehreiu servants, except that of criminals, which 
has nothing to do with this question, sanctioned 
by the Divine law, the service was voluntary, the 
subordinate being directly or indirectly a party to 
the contract; it was also limited in duration and 
rendered for just compensation. His principal — 
for owner he had none — had no shadow of light 
of property in the person of the servant; and 
he, or his "kinsman," could at any time cancel the 
contract by paying the balance on his unexpired 
time; but, if this was not done, his time of service 
terminated by express law at the "year of release." 
So far, therefore, as the case of Helreiv servants 
is concerned the law of God is expUcit, beyond 



296 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

the power of evasion, that their service was volun- 
tary, and that it was hmited as to time — precisely 
the opposite of American slavery. 

2. The only remaining question here is, the 
condition of heathen servants under the Hebrew 
code, and a few facts will place this beyond con- 
troversy with all who revere the Bible as the word 
of God. As slavery existed among the heathen 
in its perpetual and property form, and slaves were 
considered and treated as articles of trade, bought 
and sold in the market by third persons, it is quite 
convenient for the slave system to make out a 
plausible case by interpreting the twenty-fifth 
chapter of Leviticus by the operations of a 
heathen or southern slave-market, and by repre- 
senting God as legalizing the system by hcensing 
his peculiar people to engage in the cruel and 
odious traffic ! Divine Wisdom appears to have 
anticipated this perversion of his word, and to have 
made special provisions against it. (1.) Where is 
there a single instance in the whole Bible where 
God authorizes or sanctions the huying and selling 
of human heings as property to third persons? 
That is, that A. should take B. as a chattel, and sell 
him to C., to be used as merchandise? No such 
authority can be found. And notwithstanding 
this fact, the whole fabric of American slavery, as 
far as its claimed support from the Old Testament 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 297 

is concerned, is built on the opposite assumption 
as its only foundation. A miserable infatuation, 
that a system of such magnitude for evil to mill- 
ions of the redeemed race should set up such a 
claim, not only without foundation in truth, but in 
the face of facts to the contrar}^ — the Hebrew 
father disposing of his daughter forms no excep- 
tion to the fact, for, as a part of the contract, 
she was to become the tvife — not chattel — of 
her superior, or his son — for, (2.) God has 
not only not sanctioned such an operation, but 
denounced it in terms, and requires the per- 
petrator to be punished with death. "And 
he that stealeth a man" — whether Hebrew or 
heathen — "and selleth him, or if he be found in his 

hands, HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH." Ex. 

xxi, 16. "If a man be found stealing any of his 
brethren of the children of Israel, and making 
merchandise of him, or selleth him, then the thief 
shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from 
among you." Deut. xxiv, 7. He that stealeth 
a man — from whom? From any other owner 
except himself? Surely not. Because, no man 
can, with the approbation of God, possess the right 
of property in the person of another. That was 
the sin of heathen slavery, against which Jehovah 
set his face with a firmness equal to the purity of 
his holy law and the magnitude of the crime. 



298 KEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

The text, then, means, that he who, by physical 
force, fraud, or any other means, takes possession 
of another, and sells him as a chattel to a third 
pej'son, or if he be found in his possession, with 
the design to sell or use him as property, "he 
shall be put to death." So intensely detestable was 
this involuntary slavery of the heathen, and the 
idea of making "merchandise" of men, in the 
sight of God, that he made death, without any 
provision for pardon or commutation, the penalty 
for the crime! (3.) To demonstrate his disap- 
probation of the entire system of heathen slavery 
and to counteract its barbarous influence, God 
incorporated into the Hebrew code a stringent anti- 
"Fugitive-Slave law," for the special protection of 
all such as might assume their natural, inalienable 
rights, and escape from the oppressions of slavery 
and seek freedom among his people. "Thou shalt 
not deliver unto his master the servant which is 
escaped from his master unto thee. He shall 
dwell with thee, even among you, in that place 
which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it 
liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him." Deut. 
xxiii, 15. The fact, therefore, is unquestionable, 
that God has denounced the punishment of death 
against the crime of selling human beings, as mer- 
chandise, to third persons; and, also, by his own 
authority, protects as freemen the victims of this 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 299 

heinous crime, who have fled from its grasp, to 
find liberty among his people. (4.) These facts 
taken together not only amount to a reaffirmance 
of the will of God, as to man's natural rights to 
human freedom, and an absolute condemnation of 
involuntary, perpetual slavery, but they leave 
only one rule of explanation of the text — "thy 
bondmen shall be of the heathen that are round 
about you, and the children of the strangers that 
sojourn among you; of them shall you buy." 
Buy them of whom? Of their self-styled owners? 
Unquestionably not; for that would be selling a 
"man as merchandise," to a third person — the 
very act against which God has denounced the 
penalty of death, unless you maintain the absurd- 
ity, that God will inflict death upon the seller^ but 
visit with his smiles and approhaiion the huyer! ! 
"Of them shafl you huy " — precisely the same term 
that is used in regard to Hebrew servants, where 
the case is perfectly clear that there was no right 
of property in the person of the servants, but sim- 
ply the procuring of service on a contract with 
those who were to serve. But as perpetuity is of 
incalculable importance to the system of slavery, 
great stress is placed on the term, " they shall be 
your bondmen forever." You need not, as a scholar, 
be told that this term is frequently used in the Bi- 
ble in an accommodated sense. This case is an 



300 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

example. ^^ Forever" here must mean either 
duration without limit, or a limited period of 
time. The former would take slavery in its 
chattel form into eternity. This is impossible; 
and, besides, the pious will there have greater 
riches and honors than slavery could possibly 
confer, and the wicked will have other busi- 
ness than buying and selling human beings, as 

there will be no market for such merchandise 
there ! It means, therefore, beyond all question, a 
limited period, and the length of time can only be 
determined by the facts and circumstances of the 
case. The Hebrews were allowed to procure serv- 
ants from among the heathen round about them, 
and of the strangers dwelling in their midst, not 
from a third person, but by contract with those 
who were to serve. The time might be either to 
the year of jubilee, or during the lifetime of the 
parties ; for, as the relation, whatever might be its 
peculiar character, was not hereditary, it could not 
extend beyond one or both those periods. In 
either case the system of involuntary, hereditary 
slavery is precluded by the authority of God. If 
the latter, the subordinate bound himself, for 
proper remuneration, to serve his principal during 
his life, and if he survived his master he was to 
render service, under the same regulations, to his 
children during his life. The former, however, is 



AND PEACTICE OP SLAVERY. 301 

most likely: "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth 
year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land 
unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubi- 
lee unto you, and ye shall return every man unto 
his possession, and ye shall return every man unto 
his own family." Lev. xxv, 10. "One law shall 
be to him that is home-born, and unto the stranger 
thatsojourneth among you." Exodus xii, 49. It 
is not at all material which of those views is pre- 
ferred ; for, while one or the other must be the true 
meaning of the text, they are both alike fatal to 
involuntary, hereditary slavery, the system you 
are trying to sustain. The facts are obvious. He- 
brews were allowed to sell themselves; that is, to 
contract to serve a principal, or master, under the 
Divine regulations, for the term of six years, the 
seventh being "the year of release," or till the 
"year of jubilee." That contract could be can- 
celed at any time by paying the master for the 
unexpired time to the year of release, or the ju- 
bilee. 

This class of subordinates are recognized in the 
Bible as hired servants. Those of the heathen 
and strangers, on the same principle, as voluntary 
parties to the contract, sold or loiind themselves 
for equitable compensation to serve to the jubi- 
lee, or during life ; and as there was no provision 
made^ which was understood by the parties, for 



302 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

their redemption, or to cancel the contract, as in 
the case of Hebrew servants, either by themselves 
or their relatives, they were considered "bond- 
servants," or "bondmen." This difference be- 
tween Hebrew and heathen servants was founded 
in wisdom and goodness. The time had not ar- 
rived in the purpose of divine Providence "to 
preach the Gospel to every creature;" the Ca- 
naanitish nations, and those around them, were 
nationally past reformation, and fast filling up the 
measure of their sins for national destruction; but 
as there was a Rahab in the devoted Jericho, who 
believed in the true God and was saved, so there 
were many individuals among those heathen within 
the reach of reformation, and God made provision 
in the Hebrew code for such, with their own con- 
sent, to be incorporated among his peculiar people, 
and to enjoy the privileges of the civihzation, edu- 
cation, and religion of the Hebrews. Their pro- 
tracted service was one of their blessings. When 
brought into this relation to the Hebrews they 
were redeemed from idolatry, and protected against 
the depredations of man-stealers and slave-dealers, 
and instructed in the knowledge and worship of 
God, having "every thing necessary for life and 
godliness." Had the period of their service been 
shorter, they were liable to return to their heathen 
associates, and through their influence to then' 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 303 

former habits of idolatry, lose the knowledge of 
God, and at last perish in the darkness of heath- 
enism. So far, therefore, is the Hebrew code from 
originating or sanctioning the system of involun- 
tary, hereditary slavery — such as the American 
system — that, from whatever point it is viewed, 
the face of God is set against the entire principle, 
and his authoritative provisions against it, if car- 
ried into practice, would speedily blot the system 
out of being and banish the abomination from the 
earth. 

That this general view is correct, and, indeed, 
the only correct one, will appear beyond the power 
of a reasonable doubt, if we just suppose the con- 
trary, which involves the absurdity, if not real 
profanity, of making God at the same time alike 
the patron and the opposer of limited service, and 
of involuntary, perpetual slavery, and of man-steal-' 
ing ; and that he deals death to the sellers and 
blessings to the buyers of stolen human beings! 

As those cases examined are supposed to be 
the strongest in the Old Testament, in support of 
chattel slavery, and as they entirely fail to sustain, 
or, in any form, to countenance the system, it is 
not necessary to notice other particular cases of 
less importance. 

Fourth. I ask your attention to still another 
view of the Old Testament Scriptures on this 

26 



304 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

question. 1. Hebrew servitude, by whatever name 
called, or in whatever light viewed, tvas either a 
part of the external economy and of the moral 
code of that people, and peculiar to then- dispensa- 
tion, or it tvas not. You can not allow the latter 
without stultifying yourself and contradicting the 
whole pro-slavery school, who, with yourself, claim 
Abraham as a model patriarchal slave-buyer and 
slave-owner, and the Hebrew institutions as a 
model code of slave laws and a complete system 
of patriarchal domestic slavery. To admit- the 
former is absolutely fatal to the whole system of 
American slavery; for, in extent, it was confined, 
by Divine authority, to that small territory which 
God gave to Abraham and his posterity, as the 
temporal possession of his pecuKar people, and 
can impart no authority whatever to any person 
or people beyond that boundary. If this is not 
the fact, and their servitude was in any case 
slavery proper, the Hebrews might now be buying 
and selling slaves in every state in the republic ! 
As to duration^ it was Hmited by the same author- 
ity, by the duration of their peculiar dispensation; 
which, with its code of servitude, and their national 
existence also, have been abolished by the order 
of God for more than eighteen hundred years. It 
is a problem of no easy solution, that men of 
intelligence should struggle, as for life, to rear an 



aUd peactice of slavery. 805 

institution for evil, of the magnitude of American 
slavery, on a foundation which either never had an 
existence in the form they claim, or, if it had, has 
been terminated centuries since, by the same 
authority that gave it a limited and temporary 
being. It may not be expected, however, that a 
system based on injustice will be very scrupulous 
as to the means of its defense. 2. The institution 
of. Hebrew servitude and the system of American 
slavery are not only not essentially analogous, but 
they are inherently antagonistic. (!•) The fact 
can not be concealed, though it should be denied, 
that the latter had its origin in the sin of robbery 
and man-stealing, and that it is sustained by the 
same operation, though in a far less honorable form 
than the original; namely, in Africa the adult, 
who was generally the victim of the outrage, had 
a chance to escape by flight, or to defend his lib- 
erty at the sacrifice of his life. But under the 
same system in America the victim is the infant, 
which is seized by the system at its birth, when 
its natural weakness forbids either flight or resist- 
ance, and it falls, a helpless victim, into the hands 
of this heartless system of Heaven-interdicted 
man-steahng! Under the Hebrew system this 
very operation, by which alone the American sys- 
tem lives, was denounced by the Almighty as a 
crime, for which the perpetrators should surely be 



306 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

put to death. (2.) Under the American system 
the service is involuntary, unremunerated, and 
perpetual. The slave has no choice as to whether 
he will be a slave, or, as such, whose property 
he shall be, what market he shall be sold at 
as a chattel, or what treatment he shall re- 
ceive as an article of merchandise. The Divine 
arrangement among the Hebrews was just the 
opposite. The service was voluntary, the serv- 
ant being a party to the contract, which secured 
to him just compensation for his services; and 
the time of service was limited generally to six 
years or less, and could, in no case, extend 
beyond the Jubilee, or the lifetime of a single 
individual. (3.) The American system claims the 
right of territorial extension without limitation; 
hence the startling efforts already made, stained 
with blood and marked by murder, to plant the 
institution in the free territories of this nation; 
while the system of Hebrew servitude was limited 
to the land of Canaan. (4.) The system you 
labor so assiduously to defend deprives its sub- 
jects — the slaves — of the light of letters, the 
knowledge of science and literature, the essential 
means of civilization, and of intellectual and moral 
elevation. It even denies to them the written 
word of God — the Bible ! The Hebrew institution 
secured to its subjects — the servants — ail those 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 307 

privileges and blessings as they existed in their 
times. 

Not to mention other points, the analogy be- 
tween the system of Hebrew servitude and the 
system of American slavery is a mere fiction — a 
bald falsity; while the contract is a positive fact: 
the one clearly originating in the wisdom, justice, 
and benevolence of God, the other in the deprav- 
ity, cupidity, injustice, and cruelty of men! 

Fifth. As a profound Biblical scholar, you need 
not be informed of the fact that the entire tes- 
timony of the Hebrew prophets is in exact con- 
formity to, and fully confirms and sustains, the 
facts and principles which I have estabhshed. 1. 
They denounce the judgments of Heaven against 
the violation of the domestic relations which God 
has ordained, and which are immutably opposed to 
the principle of slavery in its chattel and property 
form. The strict observance of the precepts of 
the prophets under this head would annihilate 
slavery from the earth. 2. They proclaim the 
judgments of God, in unmeasured terms, against 
the injustice and sin of oppression in every form 
and degree, of either Hebrew or heathen. Their 
imperative demand, by the authority of God, is 
that the oppressor should "undo the heavy burdens 
and let the oppressed go free, and that every yoke 
should be broken," that every subject and citizen 



308 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

should have unrestrained liberty to serve and obey 
God according to the moral constitution of the 
Divine governmentj and man's individual responsi- 
bility to his Maker. 3. Furthermore, in the most 
solemn form, reiterated under various circum- 
stances, they pledge the purity, justice, truth, and 
power of God in behalf of the oppressed and 
against the oppressors; that though he may bear 
long, and seem to be forgetful of their sufferings, 
his ears are ever attentive to their cries, and his 
eyes witness their tears and wrongs; and, in due 
time, if their yoke is not broken off, and their 
burdens removed, his arm will be stretched out in 
retributive judgments for their deliverance, and 
the chastisement if not the utter ruin of their 
heartless oppressors. 

Here, also, either obedience to the Divine re- 
quirements in removing the burdens, breaking the 
yoke from the necks of the degraded, and letting 
"the oppressed go free," or a proper reverence and 
regard for the threatened judgments of Heaven, 
would speedily and finally destroy the whole sys- 
tem of American slavery. Having shown conclu- 
sively that no where in the Old Testament did 
God either originate, sustain, sanction, or in any 
wise countenance involuntary, hereditary, unremu- 
nerated, jjerjietual chattel slavery ; and that, on the 
contrary, he excluded it from the system of pa- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 309 

triarchal servitude, from the law of the ten com- 
mandments, from the whole Hebrew code; and that 
the prophets denounced it as a terrible sin against 
God and man; and that all these, separately and 
together, bear an eternal testimony against the en- 
tire system of making chattels of human beings, 
I turn to an examination of the New Testament 
on this subject. 

In the mean time I remain yours, as ever, 

J. H. P. 



310 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 



LETTER XIV. 

THE NEW TESTAMENT AND SLAVERY. 

Slavery examined by tlie New Testament — The doctrines and teach- 
ing of Christ — Condemned by both — The moral principles he es- 
tablished if obeyed would annihilate slavery — The doctrines and 
teachings of the apostles — The same result — Servitude among the 
Jews in the time of Christ and his apostles — Let as many servants 
as are under the yoke, examined. 

. Rev. W. a. Smith, D, D.,— As the Old Testa- 
ment renders no support to the system of slavery, 
for which you contend, if it receives any sanction 
whatever from revelation, it must be found in the 
New Testament; and, if found there, it must be 
either in the teachings of Christ, his apostles, or 
the spirit and genius of the Gospel, or in all of 
them together. 

First You have presumed largely on the dis- 
courses and example of the Savior, in support of 
domestic slavery; that is, American slavery. 
After assuming what never was true, that "in the 
days of the Savior" the Jews were a slavehold- 
ing community to an extent not exceeded by any 
"state in this Union," and that "the hospitalities 
of every family he visited were administered to 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 311 

him by domestic slaves" — domestic chattels ac- 
cording to your assumption — you add, "And in 
all this time, and under all these circumstances, 
not one word is known to have escaped him, either 
in public or in private, charging the relation of mas- 
ter and slave to be sinful!" (Page 143.) On 
the contrary, " This relation is made the subject of 
some of his most eloquent allusions, and the basis 
of some of his most instructive parables." (Page 
144.) 1. I have fully exposed the absurdities of 
these assumptions in a previous letter, but the 
importance of the subject will justify further no- 
tice here. The entire strength of your position 
and that of the whole pro-slavery school in regard 
to the Savior is, (1.) That he did not condemn as 
sinful "the relation of master and slave," by 
which you mean the relation of legal owner of a 
human being as chattel property ; but I have shown 
that no such relation existed among the Jews. 
(2.) That by "allusions," and by making this 
chattel and property relation "the basis of some 
of his most instructive parables," he sanctioned it 
as a patriarchal and godly institution. As to his 
"allusions" and "parables," it has already been 
demonstrated that to suppose he referred to slaves 
as chattel property in the cases you have cited — 
which are the strongest you could adduce for such 
a purpose — would make him utter extreme non- 
27 



312 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

sense, absurdity, and falsehood! And if it were 
admitted that he referred to slavery in its property 
form in those "allusions," it would no more follow 
that he approved it, than that he sanctioned back- 
sliding, swindhng, and murder, because he "al- 
luded" to the "foolish virgins," the "unjust stew- 
ard," and "the murderers" of the servants and 
son of the owner of the vineyard; and, indeed, 
"made them the basis of instructive parables." 
After all, however, the strongest hope of pro- 
slaveryism is, by some process or other, to com- 
pel Christ to be a kind of negative witness in 
favor of human bondage and the degradation of 
slavery. When put in the form of an argument 
it is, "The divine Savior, as a holy teacher, con- 
demned in terms every thing that is sinful; but 
^not a word is known to have escaped him, either 
in pubhc or private, declaring the relation of mas- 
ter and slave to be sinful;' therefore, involun- 
tary, perpetual, unremunerated slavery is not 
sinful, and, of course, is morally right in the sight 
of God." That this is the strength of the pro- 
slavery argument, as far as Christ is concerned, is 
demonstrable by simply supposing the conlrary of 
either of the propositions, or of the conclusion. And 
its falsity and absurdity are equally demonstrable 
by testing it on a thousand facts. For example : 
"Not a word is known to have escaped him, either 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 313 

in public or private, declaring in terms horse- 
stealing, counterfeiting, forgery, arson, poisoning a 
neighbor's stock, and a thousand other palpable 
crimes, to be sinful!" Therefore, all these are 
godly works, sanctioned by the Savior!! And 
the advocates of slavery will not be allowed to es- 
cape these revolting imputations, which their logic 
casts upon the moral character of Christ, by as- 
serting that he condemned all immorahties in 
principle, and that the principles of moral duty 
which he established would destroy these and all 
other sins of man ; for, it is on this very ground 
that he bears the most withering testimony against 
the whole system of slavery in all its chattel mod- 
ifications. The gross fallacy in this supposed sup- 
port of slavery by the Savior is, in assuming, in 
the face of facts to the contrary, that he de- 
nounced by name, and in terms, every thing 
morally Vv^rong and sinful. This never was the 
principle on which the Divine will was revealed to 
man, and all conclusions based on such a view are 
necessarily false. 

And as no just conclusion can be drawn from 
either the silence of Christ or his allusions to par- 
ticular relations or practices as being sinful, the 
proper questions are : What moral principles did 
he establish, for the moral government of all the rela- 
tions^ oUigations, duties, and practice of all men, in 



314 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

all ages of the 2vorld ? and, is it iniorally possible 

TO RECONCILE SLAVERY, IN ITS CHATTEL CHARACTER, 

WITH THESE DIVINE PRINCIPLES? 2. Christ Opened 
bis public ministry, in tbe presence of the " multi- 
tudes," with the distinct announcement: "Think 
not that I am come to destroy the law or the 
prophets; I am not come to destroy but t ' fulfill. 
For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth 
pass, one j ot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from 
the law till all be fulfilled." And then with a wis- 
dom and authority truly divine, he brought out the 
moral constitution — the decalogue — in its true spir- 
ituality and moral force, extending its claims to 
all the passions of the heart, the purposes of the 
mind, and the actions of the hfe, making an im- 
pure look adultery, the hatred of the heart mur- 
der, and denouncing the "danger of hell-fire" 
against the offenders! He especially throws the 
sovereign protection of the law around the mar- 
riage relation and its reciprocal obligations and 
privileges; and that there might be neither doubt 
nor mistake, as to the harmony of his doctrines 
and the teachings of the Old Testament, he afBrms, 
"This is the law and the prophets." He closes 
this infallible explanation and application of the 
moral law, by giving the most perfect and inimi- 
table epitome of it for all practicable purposes 
among all men, in all ages : " Therefore, all things 



AND PRACTICE OP SLAVERY. 315 

whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, 
do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the 
prophets." Although with less external grandeur 
than attended its announcement on Sinai, yet 
with the same Divine authority the Savior recog- 
nized, re-enacted, and proclaimed the law of the 
ten commandments in full force in the moral 
government of God among men. 

This "sermon on the mount," emhodying the 
decalogue as the great moral principle, is the moral 
CONSTITUTION of the Gospel kingdom on earth, and 
the rule of final judgment in the great dag of eternal 
retribution. Now, sir, I have already shown, with a 
moral certainty that deprecates no criticism, that 
the decalogue, which guards the domestic relations, 
duties, and privileges with sovereign authority, 
and chattel slavery, which practically treats these 
relations and duties with utter contempt, are inher- 
ently and necessarily opposites. And, also, that the 
prophets, from Moses to Malachi, proclaimed the 
same doctrines of the moral law, demanding liberty 
for the enslaved and oppressed, and denouncing 
the judgments of Heaven against the oppressors. 
In the fullness of time, "God manifest in the 
flesh " republished this law, in its authoritative 
application to the motives, hearts, and lives of all 
men, in all their relations, obligations, and duties 
to God, and to each other, with the results for 



316 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

time and eternity; and under the application of 
this moral system by the Savior, as well as in its 
origin and history, slavery — American slavery — 
has no more sanction than adultery, man-steahng, 
or murder. In the face of all these facts, you 
strangely affirm, that in all the public and private 
life of Jesus Christ "not one word escaped him" 
in condemnation of this nefarious system of human 
oppression. It would be difficult to decide whether 
a man should be pitied for his ignorance, or 
despised for dishonesty, who, on hearing the judge 
announce the general laiu against breaking the 
peace, robbery and theft, because he did not men- 
tion every case in terms, should knock you down 
with a gutta-percha cane, and rob you of your 
gold watch worth three hundred dollars ; and when 
arrested for the crime, should plead in justification 
that the judge had authorized and sanctioned the 
whole operation, because "not one word escaped 
him " against the use of such an instrument with 
which to commit violence upon you, or of robbing 
you, by name, of a watch of just that kind and 
value! His plea would be equally as good as 
that of the system of slavery, on the assumed 
silence of the Savior. 

The real magnitude of the indignity offered to 
the divine Redeemer, in attempting to make him 
the patron of chattel slavery, can never be appre- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 317 

dated, till it shall be seen in the light of eternity. 
It makes him contradict himself and matters 
of fact. When he says, "A good tree can n(jt 
bring forth evil fruit," if he sanctions the system 
of slavery — American slavery, for that is what 
you are pleading for — then it must be '"'a good 
tree," but its whole fruit is an accumulation of 
evily physical, political, social, and moral, at which 
the heart of benevolence sickens, and upon which 
Heaven frowns. When he says, "Thou shalt love 
God with all thy heart," he means, "and at the 
same time you may rob the innocent of their 
liberty, disregard the relations God has ordained, 
break up families and sell the members as chat- 
tels, luxuriate in the fruit of the unremunerated 
toils of those who have 'reaped down your harvests, 
and from whom their wages have been withheld,' 
and whose cries are going up to heaven against 
you — go on, for there is a perfect harmony be- 
tween holiness of heart and unJioUness of lifer 
And when he says, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
as thyself," he means, "you shall snatch the Bible 
from his hands, shut out the hght of letters from 
his mind, chain the intellect in ignorance, break up 
his domestic and social relations, and use him as a 
chattel in the shop, field, or market, regardless of 
his interests or happiness in this or the future 
world!" 



818 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

Still further. If the Savior sanctioned the 
system of slavery you defend, then he who came 
to reveal and confirm the word of God to man, and 
enjoined it as a duty to "search the Scriptures," 
forbids millions of those he redeemed to read the 
Scriptures; he who came into the world "to open 
the prison doors to them that are bound," forged 
new bolts and heavier chains with which to con- 
fine and afflict the oppressed; he who came a 
"teacher from God," and is "the fight of the 
world," indorsed and established a system that 
depends for its being and perpetuity on the igno- 
rance, darkness, and barbarism of its victims; he 
who came "to bind up the broken in heart, and 
comfort them that mourn," sanctioned and au- 
thorized a system which has caused deeper sor- 
rows to flow and more hearts to bleed than any 
other system under the whole heavens! The 
grossest infidefity could not commit a greater out- 
rage upon the character and teaching of the Lord 
Jesus Christ than slavery does, in claiming his 
sanction for its support! Christ the patron of 
slavery ! ! He established moral imnd;ple% of Di- 
vine authority, universal application, and perpetual 
obligation, either of which, if faithfully applied and 
carried out in practice, would banish slavery out 
of being; and, taken together, assails it from every 
point, and attacks it in every element as the mon- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 319 

ster sin of men and the moral curse of the earth. 
He meets it with the terrors of the Divine law, 
and the threatenings of the holy prophets, and in 
his own supreme authority denounces the terrors 
of "hell" against all who disregard his commands. 
His whole life and doctrines are a perpetual divine 
testimony against injustice, cruelty, oppression, and 
moral impurity of every kind, all of which are 
chargeable on slavery, in one form or other, as a 
system of incurable depravity. 

Second. I turn to inquire, now, whether the 
apostles patronized the system of chattel slavery. 
Now, their doctrine on this subject, as well as all 
others, either is or it is not in harmony with the 
law, the prophets, and the Savior. None but an 
infidel will affirm the latter; and if it were even 
demonstrated, it would not prove the truth or di- 
vine character of slavery, but only that they con- 
tradict the law, the prophets, and the divine 
Savior on the grave question of robbing men of 
their rights and converting them into human 
chattels. 

I unhesitatingly affirm that on this, as on all 
other subjects of Divine teaching, there is perfect 
harmony between the inspired writers. The same 
infinite Spirit directed the writers, whether proph- 
ets or apostles; and, although they wrote and 
taught at different and distant periods of the 



^20 



BEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 



world, and under almost every variety of circum- 
stance, theij allemhodfj the great iivimipUs of God's 
moral laiv; bear an unbroken testimony against 
injustice, oppression, and sin in every form; guard 
and protect the domestic relations as the universal 
ordinance of God, and enjoin, on pain of eternal 
perdition, supreme love to God and reciprocal, 
universal love to man. These divine principles, 
"according to the analogy of faith," constitute the 
infallible rule by which to interpret every thing 
that either prophets or apostles have written under 
all circumstances, and on all subjects. Any inter- 
pretation or application of the teachings of these 
"holy men of God," which would conflict with the 
moral purity. Divine authority, and universal obli- 
gation of the decalogue, or even by remote im- 
plication release man in any degi^ee from the 
obligation to love God with all his heart and his 
neighbor as himself; or that would give the least 
countenance to injustice, oppression, cruelty, the 
violation of the relations of husband and wife, 
parents and children, or to sin of any kind either 
in systems or individuals in any degree or charac- 
ter, is absolutely erroneous, if not really wicked. 
As it has been clearly shown that there is perfect 
harmony between the law, the p^ophets, and the 
Divine Redeemer on these great moral principles 
and duties, and that they bear a separate, joint, 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 321 

and authoritative testimony against slavery, par- 
ticularly American slavery, that is, the right of 
2rropeyty in the persons of human beings as chattels 
and articles of commerce, all that remains is to 
show that every thing the apostles have said on 
the subject of servants is in conformity to the 
same principles. 

To do this I need only take what you appear 
to consider the clearest case in the New Testament 
as a specimen of the whole. "Let as many serv- 
ants as are under the yoke count their own mas- 
ters worthy of all honor, that the name of God 
and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they 
that have believing masters, let them not despise 
them, because they are brethren; but rather do 
them service, because they are faithful and beloved, 
partakers of the benefit. These things teach and 
exhort." 1 Tim. vi, 1, 2. Interpreting this case 
by the system of American slavery, instead of the 
analogy of faith and the moral law, you make 
short^'work with the subject, thus: "Paul's denun- 
ciation—I Tim. vi, 3— of the teachers of abolition 
doctrines, that they 'consent not to ivholesome luords, 
even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ; is suffi- 
cient reason to believe that he was always under- 
stood to approve of the relation, and to condemn, 
in express terms, all attempts to abolish it, as a 
duty of the rehgion which he taught." (Page 144.) 



322 BEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

In this attempt to press Paul into the service 
of the system of southern slavery, you assume the 
points to be proved. (1.) That "master," in the 
text, means a man who has the moral and legal 
right of property in the person — "body, soul, and 
spirit " — of a fellow-man, and by virtue of that 
relation, as the owner of his person, has a right to 
separate him forever from his wife and children, 
and to sell him in the market as he would a beast 
of burden, to the highest bidder. (2.) You assume 
that "servant" means a human being '^\io^Q per- 
son is subjected to all the accidents of property , 
and who sustains the same relation to the laws of 
property of an article of merchandise, and is, " to all 
intents and purposes, a chattel in the hands of his 
oivnerT (3.) That this is a just relation, a godly 
system, and a righteous traffic in human souls and 
bodies, and that "Paul condemns, in express terms, 
all attempts to aboHsh either, as a duty of the 
religion which he taught." (4.) That Paul en- 
joined Timothy to "teach these things," and 
affirmed that, "if any man teach otherwise . . . 
he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about 
questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh 
envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse dis- 
putings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of 
the truth." That this is quite an array of as- 
sumptions as the only hope of making out a case, 



AND PRACTICE OV SLAVERY. 323 

none will deny; but that it is your true, and, in- 
deed, only position is demonstrable by only sup- 
posing the contrary, which will not only deprive 
you of the testimony of Paul, and, with him, all 
the apostles in support of slavery, but will turn 
his inspired authority against the whole system. 

Suppose Paul recognized no such right of own- 
ership in the master; no such chattel character in 
the person of the servant; no justice in such rela- 
tion; no godliness in the system, or righteousness 
in the traffic; and that "the rehgion which he 
taught" was designed to "aboUsh" all unjust re- 
lations, ungodly systems, and all unrighteous traf- 
fic of every kind; and that these were "the things 
Timothy was to teach;" and especially "that the 
LAW is not made for a righteous man, but for the 
lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for 
sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of 
fathers, and murderers of mothers, for man-slayers, 
[precisely what the system of slavery has done by 
thousands,] for whoremongers, for them that defile 
themselves with mankind, for men-stealers, [the 
very crime in which slavery — American slavery — 
had its origin, and by which it has been supported 
to the present day, and must be till it is banished 
from the land, and against which God has de- 
nounced the penalty of death,] for liars, for per- 
jured persons, and if there be any other thing that 



824 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glo- 
rious Gospel of the blessed God, which was com- 
mitted to my trust." 1 Tim. i, 9-11. 

Now, dear sir, it must be clear beyond the 
power to doubt, either that your assumptions, 
which make Paul the patron of southern slavery — 
for that is the question before us — are true, or the 
contrary as stated above is the fact. It is impos- 
sible that both can be true ; and yet, one or the 
other must present the apostle's real position on 
this important question. Your position makes 
him contradict the law of God, which punished 
with death those who claimed property in the per- 
son of a man, and the right to sell him to a third 
person as "merchandise." You make him contra- 
dict the prophets, who every-where denounced 
slavery, and proclaimed the terrors of the laio 
against injustice and oppression in every form. 
Your assumptions make him contradict the Savior, 
who sanctioned and republished "the law and the 
prophets," with a Divine authority which withers 
and denounces slavery in all its elements and pow- 
ers. They make him contradict himself, for he 
puts "man-stealers"— who, as explained in the 
law of God, are men claiming property in the per- 
sons of human beings, and the right to sell them 
as chattels to third persons, the precise character 
of American slavery — in the same category with 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 325 

the vilest ofFenders of the fallen race, and threat- 
ens them with the heaviest penalty of the violated 
law; and if, when he says "servants, obey your 
masters," he means to recognize the person of the 
servant as a chattel, and the master as the oivner 
of that chattel, and to sanction that relation, the 
contradiction is palpable, and Paul was an impostor! 
Just so sure, then, as Paul was not a deceiver, and 
as an inspired teacher could not contradict the 
law and the prophets, and the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and himself; and as he has fully recognized the 
Divine authority of them all, and has specifically 
quoted them against slavery, and enjoined Tim- 
othy to "teach these things as the sound doctrine 
of the Gospel committed to his trust," and de- 
nounced all who oppose this "sound doctrine" 
against " men-stealers "—slavery— as " ignorant 
of the truth," just so sure is he a swift witness 
against the whole system of chattel slavery, and 
making merchandise of men ! His entire teach- 
ing, and that of the other apostles, is in harmony 
with these facts and principles. 

"Let as many servants as are under the yoke "— 
under bondage— that is, let all those bondmen or 
servants who have become Christians, honor their 
profession by rendering proper obedience and due 
respect to their masters and superiors, "that the 
name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed." 



826 KEViEW or the philosophy 

They were- "bond servants" under the provisions 
of the Hebrew code, which the apostles perfectly 
understood, and which made the servant a volun- 
tary party to the contract, and positively limited 
the service, generally within six years, but in cer- 
tain circumstances allowed it to continue during 
the lifetime of the subordinate. 

Many such cases no doubt existed where per- 
sons had entered into this relation, and were 
hound to serve for an agreed compensation for a 
limited time, or even for life ; but, with a renewed 
heart, higher motives, and in the hght of the Gos- 
pel, saw they could greatly better their condition 
if this relation was dissolved. Such persons would 
be strongly tempted to violate their engagements, 
to the discredit of the Gospel and their own 
Christian character. The apostles enjoin Chris- 
tian fidelity, though it should be at the sacrifice 
of all temporal interests and even life itself. 

This view is fully confirmed by the authorita- 
tive requirement, "Masters" — not owners — "give 
unto your servants" — not your property — "that 
which is JUST and equal; knowing that ye also 
have a Master in heaven who is no respecter of 
persons." 

A limited servitude, for proper remuneration, as 
provided in the Divine law, will explain and har- 
monize with the whole Scriptures every thing the 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 327 

apostles have said on the subject in the New 
Testament; while any other view involves all the 
contradictions and absurdities, not to say profani- 
ties, as exposed above. 

I am aware, indeed, that men of learning, tal- 
ents, and piety have, from prejudice of education, 
pride of opinion, or some other cause, allowed that 
the apostles received into the Church, as members, 
slaveholders ; men who claimed the right of property/ 
in the persons of men, and the right to lay and sell 
them as chattels and articles of merchandise. This 
vague and unauthorized admission has afforded 
great comfort to slave-owners and slave-dealers, 
and especially such of them as profess Christi- 
anity. Now, as the advocates of this notion have 
utterly failed to adduce a particle of tangible and 
reliable testimony, that a single member of the 
Church under the apostles' administration ever 
bought, sold, owned, or used a human being as a 
chattel, claiming the right of property in his per- 
son as an article of merchandise— I deny and 
spurn the whole affair as an absurd fiction, having 
no foundation whatever in fact, and as not deserv- 
ing the least respect, till sustained by clear and 
unquestionable proof. It is a mere flimsy pre- 
sumption, which arrays fictions against facts; the 
law of God against itself; inspired teachers against 
each other, and sacrifices the veracity of the Bi- 

28 



328 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

ble, and the purity and dignity of Christianity at 
the bloody shrine of slavery. In the name of 
pure Christianity I enter a solemn protest against 
any and all such admissions, inferences, or by 
whatever name called, till sustained by proof as 
plain as the word of God: "He that stealeth a 
man and selleth him, or if he is found in his pos- 
session, he shall surely be put to death." 

As both the Old and New Testaments bear a 
withering testimony against involuntary, unremu- 
nerated, perpetual slavery, both in terms and 
throughout their whole range of inference and im- 
plication, I might here close the subject; but as 1 
wish to give the system every chance for its life, 
as far as the Scriptures are concerned, I will re- 
serve for another letter the inquiry whether the 
spirit and genius of the Gospel can afford it any 
relief. 

Yours as ever, 

J. H. P. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 329 



LETTER XV. 

THE SPIRIT AND DESIGN OF THE GOSPEL 
AND SLAVERY. 

Does the spirit and genius of the Gospel sustain slavery ?-Men sus- 
tain individual relations, and owe individual duties to God which 
allow of no substitute-The Gospel recognizes these relations, and 
requires the discharge of the duties-The Gospel is opposed to ev- 
ery practice and institution, whatever may be its name or charac- 
ter, that impedes its progress, resists its influence, or hinders its 
intended results-Slavery is chargeable with resisting the Gospel 
in all these respects-It shuts out light from the minds of its sub- 
jects-Keeps them in ignorance-Desecrates all the domestic rela- 
tions-Degrades men to the condition of brutes-The Gospel assails ' 
it in every element and from every point-The conflict is hastening 
to an issue-The system must perish, or Divine judgments visit 
the nation. 

Hev. Dr. W. a. Smith,— ^^iV^. Does the spirit 
and genius of the Gospel sustain the system of 
slavery? 1. "The Gospel is the power of God 
unto salvation to them that believe." It creates 
a special relation between man and his Maker, 
through the merits of Christ, which is demon- 
strated to the hearts of men, and especially those 
who believe, by the operations of the Holy Spirit. 
As, in the wisdom of God, no system can be sub- 
stituted for the Gospel as a means of salvation, 
and the medium of the knowledge of God and of 



830 



REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 



the interests of eternity, so neither can any proxy 
or institution be substituted for the knowledge of 
God, and personal faith, love, and obedience in 
order to individual salvation. Hence, salvation is 
a personal matter between the sinful soul and the 
pardoning God, which admits of no intervention 
between the parties, but the merits and mediation 
of Christ as the sinner's only plea, and the agency 
of the divine Spirit to communicate grace and sal- 
vation to the believing heart. 

These positions are so clear, so divine, and 
Scriptural, that to discard them and suppose the 
contrary would be a total rejection of the whole 
Christian system. There is no fact more clearly 
revealed to man, or more deeply graven upon his 
conscience, when enlightened by Divine truth, 
than that God holds every man individually re- 
sponsible to him for the discharge of his personal 
and relative duties as a condition of his happiness 
here and in the future world. To adduce all the 
proof would be to transcribe a large portion of the 
Bible, and to record the convictions of every man 
on this point. A single instance, the one, two, 
and five talents, will sufficiently illustrate the case. 
There was a special trust committed to individuals 
for their personal benefit, to be improved according 
to their capacities and circumstances. As the 
trust was individual, so also was the responsibility 



AND PEACTIOE OF SLAVERY. 331 

and final results. Two of them performed the 
conditions and received the reward; the other, 
thouoh he retained the trust unimpaired, failed to 
improve it and was dishonored, punished, ruined. 
Such are the moral relations and responsibilities 
of every man under the provisions of the Gospel, 
that his individual faithfulness will be gmaoudy 
rewarded with salvation and heaven, or his un- 
faithfulness justly punished with guilt and perdi- 
tion 2 " The Gospel as the means of salvation 
must be adapted to all the moral and spiritual ne- 
cessities of man, otherwise it would only be a 
mockery of his misery. What are the moral wants 
of the world % What man has lost, and what he has 
become involved in by sin, will indicate with suffi- 
cient clearness, for the purposes of this inquiry, 
what he needs to restore him to happiness and to 
prepare him for heaven. 

By his apostasy man forfeited the Divine favor, 
and lost the moral image of God from his soul; 
and, also, that peace and happiness which arise 
from a consciousness of purity and innocence. 
He being involved in deep depravity, affecting his 
whole nature, "the eyes of his understandmg dark- 
ened," his heart hardened, his passions and appe- 
tites perverted, his affections alienated from God, 
his conscience guilty, exposed to the penalty 
of the violated law, helpless and in moral rum, 



332 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

having no power or means within himself either 
to repair his calamity or to escape its fearful 
and^ eternal results. Hence, ignorance of the 
Divine character and government, and of the 
relations mankind sustain to them and to each 
other, and the violation of those relations and dis- 
regard for the personal and relative duties arising 
out of them, have characterized the fallen race"^ 
and filled the world with wickedness and woes! 
But "when the world by wisdom knew not God, 
life and immortahty were brought to light by the 
Gospel," and when the wisdom of the world had 
in vain exhausted its resources to meet the moral 
necessities of man, the Gospel revealed alike the 
source of the world's malady and its only remedy. 
The adaptation of this potent remedy to the evils 
and necessities of man, is seen with a clearness 
that can not be mistaken by the candid, nor re- 
sisted by the skeptical. "Behold the Lamb of 
God which taketh away the sin of the world," 
is the opening salutation of the Gospel, and em- 
bodies the sublime doctrine of the atonement, by 
the vicarious sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, 
with its uncondiUonal benefits of light and truth' 
and its conditional benefits of grace and salvation^ 
as ihQ ground of the sinner's hope of acceptance 
with God and the "desire of all nations." 

The Gospel based upon and embodying this 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 333 

great doctrine of atonement, assails ignorance and 
sin in all their forms, and diffuses the light of 
truth upon every relation, duty, and condition of 
man. Hence the prophet, in anticipation of the 
fullness of the Gospel, "I the Lord have called 
thee in righteousness, and will hold thy hand, and 
will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of 
the people, for a Hght of the Gentiles; to open 
the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the 
prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the 
prison-house." Isa. xlii, 6, 7. The Savior re- 
sponds: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, 
because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel 
to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal the broken- 
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and 
the recovering of sight to the bhnd, to set at lib- 
erty them that are bruised, to preach the accept- 
able year of the Lord." Luke iv, 18, 19. 

From this specimen it is perfectly clear that the 
Gospel addresses itself directly to the intellectual 
and moral state of man, and, indiredly, to his 
physical condition in all his various relations in 
life, with the view of eradicating all that is wrong 
in either, and of estabUshing every thing that is 
right in all of them. Considered in this hght, the 
provision is as extensive as the evil; it is provided 
for all who are involved; but all mankind are in- 
volved; the provision, therefore, is universal. The 



334 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

remedy is as potent as the malady is virulent. Is 
man morally and spiritually "poor/' "blind," "in 
darkness," a "prisoner," a "captive," "bound," 
"bruised," "broken-hearted," "in the prison-house" 
of ignorance, depravity, g«ilt, and sin ? " the Gos- 
pel which is the power of God unto salvation to 
every one that believeth," brings full deliverance 
to all who accept on the terms God has prescribed — 
faith and obedience. In this light of the Gos- 
pel the redeemed captive sees the true character 
of God, and his individual relation and personal 
obligations of obedience to him. He sees that 
" he is not his own, that he is bought with a price," 
and that it is his imperative duty and highest 
honor to "glorify God in his body and spirit, 
which are his," and that his eternal happiness is 
inseparable from his fidelity to God. 

According to the special design of the Gospel, 
he sees, appreciates, and holds sacred and of Di- 
vine appointment, the relation of husband and 
wife; and that the Gospel honors it by making it 
the symbol of the mystical relation between the 
Church as the bride and Christ as the bridegroom ; 
demonstrating thereby its Divine origin, and its 
sacredness in the sight of God. The Gospel is 
equally clear in recognizing, and imperative in 
protecting the relation, and in enforcing the duties 
and obligations of parents and children. So sa- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 335 

cred is this relation, that God has made it the 
symbol of the household of heaven. He is the 
infinitely-gracious and glorious "Father, of whom 
the whole famll!) in heaven and earth is named. 
The first prayer taught in the Gospel is, "Our 
Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, 
thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as 
it is in heaven.'^ The duty of parents for the 
protection, instruction, improvement, usefulness, 
and salvation of their children is exemphfied m 
the special interest the " heavenly Father " takes 
for his children-the pious of every age and na- 
tion The reciprocal duty of children to love, 
honor, and obey their parents is illustrated by the 
unremitted obedience God requires of his chil- 
dren These relations and their duties, ordamed 
of God, recognized and protected by the Gospel, 
are founded in wisdom, justice, goodness, and love, 
and are essential to the honor, usefulness, happi- 
ness, and salvation of man, the triumphs of the 
Gospel of Christ, and the glory of God. 

The Gospel also brings out in its true character, 
and teaches man to appreciate the great fact of 
the ''common brotherhood of mankind;" that "God 
hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to 
dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determ- 
ined the times before appointed, and the bounds 
of their habitation; that they should seek the 

29 



336 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find J 
him, though he be not far from every one of us; 
for in him we live, and move, and have our being;" 
"we are the offspring of God." Acts xvii, 26-29. 
All are redeemed by the blood of Christ: "He 
by the grace of God tasted death for every man;" 
"lie is the true light which lighteth every man 
that cometh into the world;" the "Holy Spirit re- 
proveth the world of sin, of righteousness, and of 
judgment;" "God is no respecter of persons;" 
"He accepteth not the persons of princes, nor re- 
gardeth the rich more than the poor, for they all 
are the work of his hands." Job xxxiv, 19. In 
view of these facts, that every man, as it regards 
his personal salvation, sustains the same relation to 
God, to Christ, to the Holy Spirit, to time, and to 
eternity; and must appear before the judgment 
throne of Christ, and receive according to what he 
has done in the body, whether it be good or bad, 
at the hands of an impartial judge, who regardeth 
not the rich more than the poor — the Gospel pro- 
claims, with authority absolutely divine, that uni- 
versal rule of common brotherhood, " Therefore, all 
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law 
and the prophets." One special feature of the 
design of the Gospel is to destroy the pride and 
selfishness of man, and to remove the hinderances 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 337 

in the way of the brotherhood of mankind, and 
to wake up his sympathies and confidence, and to 
bring the wandering race under the influence of 
justice, truth, charity, and brotherly kindness to- 
ward each other, and faith, love, and obedience to 
God. The Gospel brings out the great truth that 
God requires of the Church, and consequently of 
every one who would be saved by the Gospel, the 
work of Christian charity and benevolence. "Ye 
are the salt of the earth;" "Ye are the light of 
the world;" "Let your hght so shine before men, 
that they may see your good works and glorify 
God," are some of the terms indicating individual 
and aggregate Christian duties under the provi- 
sions of the Gospel of the grace of God. The 
correctness of this view of the Gospel is fully ex- 
emphfied in its history among men. Wherever its 
authority has been recognized, its truths believed, 
its precepts and teachings obeyed in faith and 
love, it has unchained the intellect, poured its 
light and truth upon the mind and conscience, 
reformed the life, purified the heart, aroused the 
slumbering genius and spirit of enterprise, and has 
conducted its subjects up to the highest ground, 
and into the clearest light of literature and 
science, social refinement and political justice, 
moral power, religious purity, and Christian charity 
and usefulness. 



338 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

No one, therefore, who has any respect for 
Christianity, will question the fact that "the 
spirit and genius " of the Gospel aims steadily at 
the accomplishment of the great work of redeem- 
ing mankind from ignorance, depravity, and sin, 
and restoring them to the favor and image of God. 
The importance of a correct view of the character 
and design of the Gospel to a right understanding 
of the question before us, is my apology for de- 
taining you so long on this point; and now I raise 
the following argument, to which I ask your atten- 
tion and that of the whole pro-slavery school. 
The genius of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 
does not sustain or approve, but, on the contrary, 
inherently and of moral necessity, is opposed to 
every practice, institution, system, and govern- 
ment that impedes its progress, resists its influ- 
ence, or hinders its intended results; But the 
system of American slavery does all this, in regard 
to the millions of the enslaved in the south. 
Therefore, the Spirit and genius of the Gospel do 
not sustain, or in any wise countenance, but, on 
the contrary, are opposed to the whole system of 
American slavery. If the truth of the premises 
is conceded, the conclusion is unquestionable. To 
deny the first proposition would involve the ab- 
surdity of making the Gospel approve and patron- 
ise its own opposers! The only point, therefore. 



AND PEACTIOK OF SLAVERY. 339 

to be established, is the truth of the second. And 
if you, sir, are allowed to be a competent and 
credible witness, I have no fears of a failure. 

1. As has been fully evinced, the Gospel ad- 
dresses its truths, principles, precepts, and prom- 
ises to the miderstandmg—i\& soul or mind— with 
the express design of disinthralling the whole im- 
mortal nature of man from superstition, idolatry, 
i<^norance, and sin, and to elevate him to the 
Wchest standard of useful knowledge and holi- 
nels- and that wherever it has not been resisted, 
but cordially received and faithfully obeyed, these 
results have invariably followed. But the system 
of American slavery resists the Gospel in all these 
respects, in regard to the miUions of the enslaved, 
except the preaching of a Gospel trihidanj to the 
system! Here, dear Doctor, I use you as a wit- 
ness. You affirm: "I can not imagine that any 
public movement, having for its object the in- 
struction of the blacks in reading and writmg, 
could be made without involving the most disas- 
trous results." (Page 231.) Such a movement 
"would be repudiated and resisted by physical 
force " And "the results could scarcely be less em- 
barrassing, if sought to be accomplished by indi- 
vidual enterprise." "Nothing could be more 
Utopian than an enterprise of the kind. Public 
opinion would scarcely be sufficiently divided to 



340 KEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

justify even the wildest schemer in making a se- 
rious attempt to effect it." (Page 232.) It 
would be treating the subject with entirely too 
much respect to attempt seriously to argue the 
question of enlightening, civilizing, Christianizing, 
and elevating a barbarous people to the standard 
of intelligence, knowledge, holiness, and useful- 
ness, designed by the Gospel of Christ, by scrupu- 
lously excluding from them a knowledge of letters, 
literature, and science of every kind, even to a 
knowledge of the written word of God. The 
thing is not only condemned by the whole Bible, 
and practically denounced by the Christian world 
as wicked, but it is contemptibly absurd ! And as 
sure as God is true, the Gospel in this particular 
is immutably opposed to slavery. 

2. By enlightening the mind and conscience the 
Gospel designs to bring man to the knowledge of 
the true character of God, and of his moral gov- 
ernment, and of his own relation and personal ob- 
ligations to him as his Sovereign and Savior. But 
the system of southern slavery, by excluding from 
its millions of slaves an education and the knowl- 
edge to read the word of God, opposes the special 
design of the Gospel on the most important point 
in the whole range of 'its divine benevolence — the 
personal salvation of men through a correct knowl- 
edge of their individual relations and duties to God. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 



341 



You have, indeed, very complaisantly said, "Many 
Bious slaves read the word of God as a part of 
Iheir family worship "-page 241-as if the 
knowledge to read and the privilege of reading 
were parts of the system of slavery, while you 
know that the system makes it a crime to learn 
the slaves to read; and, of course, criminal in them 
to read, if by accident and in opposition to the 
prohibition they have learned to read. The sys- 
tem, as such, can not be allowed to escape from its 
responsibihties and merited odium under cover ot 
the kindness of individuals, who either repudiate 
the system in their hearts, and violate its bar- 
harou; provisions in privately teaching a few 
slaves to read the word of God, or whose hear s 
are so much better than their heads, that while 
the latter leads them to maintain the system, the 
former prompts them to violate its prohibitions to 
learn slaves to read the word of life. Whatever 
motives may influence such persons, their actions 
are a standing condemnation of the system. In 
this particular also the Gospel and slavery are in 
open hostility to each other. 

3 As has been demonstrated, the Gospel mam- 
tains, with the sternness of Divine authority, the 
sacredness of the domestic relations. The system 
of American slavery ignores, tramples under loot 
and outrages all those relations, by tearing asunder 



342 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers 
and sisters, friends and relatives, and selling them 
in the market, and separating them for life, with 
a heartlessness that should make heathenism 
blush for shame ! On this point God and slavery 
are at issue, and the result to the system will be 
fearful. 

4. The Gospel requires "parents to bring up 
[educate] their children in the nurture and admo- 
nition of the Lord." The system of slavery makes 
it punishable by law, for slave parents, or others 
for them, to educate their children even so as to 
read and learn the character and will of God from 
his own word. The Gospel requires children "to 
honor and obey their parents in the Lord;" the 
slave system, by desecrating the marriage relation, 
deprives the children of all reasonable knowledge 
of their parentage; and, as far as they have any 
information on the subject, they are required by 
the system to look upon their real or reputed 
parents as " chattels," to be kicked and cuffed at 
the will of a despot, and by the same hands to be 
separated from them whenever the interests or 
caprices of the owners required it. The opera- 
tions of the southern slave-market, under the pro- 
visions of the system, are daily demonstrations of 
the truth of all this, and render it impossible for 
husbands and wives, parents and children, to per- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 343 

form their reciprocal duties as required in the 
Gospelj and are at open war with the order of 
God and the rehgious interests of man — heaven 
and hell are not more hostile than the system of 
American slavery and the Gospel of the Son of 
God! 

5. As it has been shown, the Gospel requires all 
men to recognize, and to act upon the principle of 
the common brotherhood of the great family of man. 
The system of American slavery sets this require- 
ment at defiance; robs millions of their natural 
rights and liberties; prohibits them from acquiring 
an education ; chains them in ignorance and degra- 
dation; will not allow them the hght of God's 
truth, only as conveyed to them by a slave-own- 
ing, or slave-defending ministry, or at least those 
who are impliedly pledged to its support; and 
with a mere sustenance for their body, works them 
by the hundreds of thousands into an early grave 
in the ignorance of barbarism, and all for the sole 
benefit of their owners. 

6. The Gospel requires all Christians, by their 
time, means, piety, and influence, to aid in extending 
Christianity throughout the world. So palpable is 
this fact, that God has deposited the means for the 
conversion of the world exclusively with the 
Church, and he holds her responsible for the ac- 
complishment of the work under the direction of 



344 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

his providence, and the provisions of his grace. 
But the system of American slavery renders the 
performance of this duty impossible in the case of 
slaves, not excepting Christian slaves. It takes 
possession of their persons as property, with all 
they have and are — time, means, and every thing — 
and appropriates all for the benefit of their owners ; 
so that, if all Christians were under this system, 
the entire Church of God could not own a dollar, 
print a Bible, preach a sermon, administer a Gospel 
ordinance, or send a single missionary abroad for 
the conversion of the world! In this particular 
alone the system of slavery would blot the Gospel 
out of being, bury Christianity, and shroud the 
world in moral night ! The fact that some Chris- 
tian slaves get means to contribute something to 
the missionary cause, and other religious purposes, 
is urged in justification of slavery. But this can 
only be attributed to a lack of knowledge or can- 
dor; for the system makes no provision for any 
such works on the part of slaves, and only toler- 
ates it when it can be turned to its own advantage. 
Whatever has been, or may be done in that way, 
was, and is, attributable to the benevolence of a 
Christian heart, in opposition to a system of cu- 
pidity and oppression. And, dear sir, as the truth 
of the first proposition is unquestionable, that the 
Gospel is absolutely opposed to every system, and 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 345 

institution, and every thing else that impedes its 
progress, resists its influence, or hinders its in- 
tended results; and as I have presented six 
instances — and the number might easily be in- 
creased — in which the system of American slavery 
stands convicted, in the light of facts and your 
own testimony, of all this hostility to the Gospel, 
the conclusion, therefore, is inevitable that the 
Gospel not only does not support or sanction chat- 
tel slavery, but is inherently opposed to the whole 
system. 

There is no way to escape, or even to mitigate 
this conclusion, but by attempting to harmonize 
the character and design of the blessed Gospel of 
Christ with the practical operations of slavery 
under the system as they exist in the south, as a 
pubHc fact. To undertake this, you must deny 
that the Gospel is designed to "disinthrall the 
soul from superstition, idolatry, ignorance, and 
sin;" you must deny that it designs to "enlighten 
the mind and conscience as to the true character 
of God and his moral government, and man's rela- 
tions and obhgations to him ;" you must deny 
that the Gospel designs to " recognize and protect 
the relation of husband and wife ;" you must deny 
that it "requires parents to bring up their children 
in the nurture of the Lord, and that it requires 
children to obey their parents in the Lord ; you 



346 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

must deny that it requires "man to cultivate and 
act upon the principle of brotherhood, or brotherly 
love;" you must deny that "it requires Christians 
to aid the cause of religion or the Church to ex- 
tend the means of salvation throughout the world !" 
By this process, and no other, you may have a 
Gospel in harmony with the system of slavery, as 
it exists in fact in this country; but it will be 
equally in harmony with all the heathenism in the 
world ! There is no alternative, the Gospel must 
be virtually rejected, or slavery stands condemned 
by its Divine authority. In view of all these facts 
and arguments, how perfectly puerile is the attempt, 
by mere verbal criticisms on a few isolated texts, 
to compel the Bible to sanction a system which 
consigns millions of blood-redeemed human beings 
to the ignorance, degradation, and oppression of 
unconditional, perpetual, hereditary slavery, as 
"chattels, to all intents, constructions, and pur- 
poses, in the hands of their owners ! !" Heaven 
will rebuke the presumption at no remote period. 
Bev. sir, I hope you may live to see your error, 
and fully recant the odium you have — unintention- 
ally, no doubt — cast upon the sacred record, and 
that 3^ou may yet employ your noble abilities in 
the cause of justice and humanity. 

I have shown in these letters, to a moral cer- 
tainty, that slavery — American slavery — has no 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 347 

support or countenance from the true philosophy 
of just government, or the moral and intellectual 
constitution of man, or his proper relation to God 
and to human society; and that God excluded the 
principle {xomi\\Q first government and relations m- 
stituted for mankind by himself— the domestic 
order. Also, that God requires moral and intel- 
lectual developments and improvements of man 
that are impossible in a state of slavery, and that 
the relation of master and servant, or superior and 
subordinate, by no means involves the principle of 
slavery, which consists alone in the right of ^jrop- 
erty in the person of the slave. It has also been 
shown, with the force of moral demonstration, that 
God excluded it from the patriarchal institutions; 
from the moral law of the ten commandments, and 
from the Hebrew code, and that it has no support 
either from the teachings of Christ, or his apostles, 
or the spirit and genius of the Gospel of the grace 
of God. This is not all. It has been shown with 
equal clearness that God and his word, Christ and 
his Gospel do not occupy a mere negative position 
in regard to this monster of iniquity, but assail it 
from every point, and in all its elements, following 
it in all its subterfuges and ^n^efuge of lies," as 
the enemy alike of God and man. So terrible is 
the truth of God to it, that it has excluded the 
Bible from the millions of its victims; it has mob- 



348 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

bed the press that would not defend it, and the 
ministers who would not morally perjure them- 
selves to God, and desecrate their office and call- 
ing in its support. 

The issue is fairly joined — the ignorance, deg- 
radation, injustice, depravity, and oppression of 
slavery against the Gospel, the Bible, the enlight- 
ened conscience of Christendom, humanity, justice, 
and God. As God works among nations by means, 
the conflict mny be protracted, and the conse- 
quences terrible to the guilty, but the result can 
not be doubted by any who believe the Bible to 
be a record of the will of God to man. Slavery, 
as the cruel oppressor of men, and the enemy of 
the Bible and of God, is doomed to die, though 
the ruins of this republic should be its sepulcher — 
the latter of which may Heaven forbid! Its 
present struggles to extend its area, increase its 
power, and perpetuate its being, are rapidly hast- 
ening the crisis when, we humbly hope, a universal 
shout of disinthralled humanity will honor it with 
the "burial of an ass." 

One more letter will close this correspondence. 
Yours, as ever, 

J. H. P. 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 349 



LETTER XVI. 

SLAVERY A NATIONAL SIN— NATIONAL 
RESPONSIBILITY. 

Treatment of the system in the future — Must be confined to its 
present limits — Is a national sin — The free states have patronized 
and sustained it by consuming its products — Moral responsibili- 
ties of the free states — They can prevent its extension — The 
Christian and civilized world should protest against the desecration 
of tlie law of marriage among the slaves — No slaveholder should 
be allowed membership in the Church, or Christian communion, 
till he denounces the desecration, and uses his influence to correct 
it — The slave children should be educated — The free states should 
aid in this work — All children born of slave parents should be 
free — The free states and general government should provide some 
compensation for those who are willing to emancipate their slaves 
on reasonable terms — The nation through the general govern- 
ment should aid and colonize all who wish to go to Africa — 
This process would relieve this nation from the present evils 
and threatened calamities of slavery, and enlighten, redeem, and 
save Africa. 

Rev. W. a. Smith, D. D., — As I have expressed 
my views so freely and frankly on the sinfulness 
of the system of American slavery, I may not be 
fully understood without some further remarks. I 
am aware, however, that any suggestions in regard 
to the system, other than in its defense, are gen- 
erally treated by its advocates with neglect, if not 
contempt; but this shall not deter me from say- 



350 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

ing what 1 may think is proper to be said on the 
subject. It is the old and "short method" with, 
this question, that whatever is sinful should be im- 
mediately abandoned; but slavery is of this cJiar- 
acter; therefore, it should be at once abohshed. 
Although this is true as to individuals, it is not 
true in the same sense in regard to systems. A 
sinful government may be more tolerable for a 
time, till it is reformed or substituted by another 
form, than the revolution and anarchy that must 
follow its immediate abohtion. If a savage seizes 
my child and carries it into the wilderness, and 
there discovers that the act is sinful, he does not 
repair the wrong or meet the justice of the case 
by immediately abandoning the object of his crime, 
and leaving the child to perish in its loneliness and 
destitution. Justice requires that he should sus- 
tain such a relation to the child as to protect and 
provide for it, till, if possible, he restores it to its 
former condition. Such are the principles involved 
in the system of American slavery. 

First. As to the extent of the moral responsi- 
biHty involved in the sinfulness of this system. 
Although the direct practical operations of slavery 
are confined to the southern slaveholding states, 
and they are the jmncipal in the offcme, the north- 
ern non-slaveholding states are accessories after 
the offense. It has been shown in the course of 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 351 

these letters, with a clearness that can not be suc- 
cessfully resisted, that the soul and being of slav- 
ery in this country is its money and commercial 
value— strike that do\Yn and you annihilate the 
system. The free states have been, and still are, 
among the most numerous customers of the sys- 
tem and the largest consumers of its products. 
There is scarcely a man, woman, or child in the 
nation that is not, directly or indirectly, a con- 
sumer of the productions of slave labor; and if 
this source of revenue was annihilated, it would 
leave the system a mere wreck. Commercially, 
therefore, it is a national system: one portion pro- 
duces and the other consumes, and both are grow- 
ing rich on the unremunerated toils of the oppressed 
and degraded miUions in bondage. It is a national 
subject^'politically and morally. Its interests and 
evils agitate the national councils, and, directly or 
indirectly, affect every department of national 
government. It is made the issue in many of the 
most important elections, both state and national; 
and its influence is seen in fiUing some of the 
most important offices in the republic. As a 
moral and religious question it has been, and still 
is, a subject of discussion, legislation, or deep agi- 
tation, in all the ecclesiastical bodies in the land. 
It is a national system as it regards moral re^pon- 
sibUity. Heaven holds the nation responsible for 

30 



€352 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

it as a sinful system, and if it provokes Divine 
chastisement, the rod will not fall alone upon the 
south, but it will be a national scourge. 

Second. What then is national dut}^ in the 
premises, in regard to the system of American 
slavery? The nation, as such, has no direct con- 
trol over the system as a whole; in that respect it 
is a local institution^ and can be controlled directly 
only by the south; but these facts do not release 
the nation from direct moral responsibility. Nor 
would it be released, if the south should adopt a 
system of immediate or gradual emancipation; for, 
as the nation has contributed to the degradation 
of the slaves, by, commercially and otherwise, 
patronizing the system, it would be a solemn, 
moral, national duty, in that case, to relieve the 
wants, and to instruct and elevate the emancipated 
slaves. Nor does the fact, that the south has not 
adopted, and never may adopt, any plan of eman- 
cipation relieve the nation from its moral respon- 
sibility in the case. We may lawfully do many 
things indirectly that it would be impracticable or 
impossible to effect directly. It would be impos- 
sible for men who were never called to the work 
to preach the Gospel in person to the heathen, but 
by an application of their means they can send 
the missionary, and thereby do indirectly what 
they could not accomplish directly. Such is the 



AND PBAOTICE OP SLAVER-Sf. 353 

moral duty of this nation in the sight of God, in 
regard to the system of American slavery, and 
woe to it if unfaithful. 

1. While the nation, as such, has no legal right— 
and if it had it might be wholly impractical to use 
it_to control or directly to interfere with the system 
of slavery as it exists in the south, as a local insti- 
tution, it has the legal, political, and moral right 
to confine it absolutely to its present geographical 
limits. I am not going to discuss here the hack- 
neyed dogma that the south have the right to take 
their slave propertij into any territory under the 
general government— other than to say (1.) 
God's holy word recognizes no such property, and 
denounces death against all who set up any such 
claim; they have, therefore, no moral right, under 
the Divine law, either to own or take them as 
property any where. (2.) The framers of the 
Constitution of the United States either did or 
did not design to provide for taking slaves into 
territory then free. I deny the former, which 
never has been and never can be proved. And it 
they did not, then the claim of the south is a per- 
version of the design of that great charter of lA- 
erty, and should be repudiated at once by the 
whole nation. (3.) But if snch was the design of 
the framers, and such the true meaning of the 
Constitution-«s the government was made for the 



354 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

people, and not the people made for the government — 
if it contains doctrines subversive of their religion 
and revolting to their moral sense of duty, as 
these claims are, they have the power and the 
right, and should use them, to change the Consti- 
tution and blot out of being all foundation of any 
such claims. (4.) For any government that, 
whether from a correct or an erroneous construc- 
tion and apphcation of its principles, makes war 
upon the enlightened conscience of a large ma- 
jority of its subjects, engages in a contest which 
no government can survive; and, unless this 
southern claim for slavery is abandoned, ours will 
be an example. 

I am aware of the probability that the cry may 
be raised, "The preacher is discussing pohtical 
questions!!!" but this note of alarm has no ter- 
rors for me; for, as an American citizen, native- 
born, I have a rights which I will relinquish only 
with my life, to discuss any question of public 
interest that I may deem to be my duty, holding 
myself responsible to God and the laws of the 
land. But to return to the question. 

Slavery should be confined to its present hmits. 
The peace of the nation requires that it should be. 
The recent attempt to extend it has been marked 
at almost every step with blood, and has inflamed 
the public mind to an extent not known before in 



AKD PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 



S55 



our histoiy; and the indications are that its repe- 
tition will produce results far more calamitous. 
Justice requires its restriction. Its extension is 
the claims of the few against the rights of the 
many— the demand to extend the Heaven-inter- 
dicted ignorance and degradation of slavery over 
virgin soil, against the rights of freemen, and of 
Divinely-approved institutions for the improve- 
ment, elevation, and dignity of humanity. Chris- 
tianity requires that it should be restricted; that 
goes with an open Bible for all the people, and can 
not prosper without it; but the extension of slav- 
ery is the restriction of the circulation of the Bi- 
ble, by excluding it from all the slaves. 

This work of confining slavery to its present 
limits devolves mainly on the friends of liberty in 
the free states; for, although there are thousands 
in the slave states who have the same views, they 
are in the minority, and the depravity and despot- 
ism of the system compels them to silence, and at 
present they would act at the peril of then- hves 
This only increases the moral responsibility ot 
those who have the power and can act. Hence, 
"„o furilur cxtmmn of slcwenf should become 
the SHiBBOLKTH of every lover of humamty and 
iustice in the land. It should be the subject of 
sober conversation in the social circle and by the 
fireside; it should be the standard to measure 



356 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

every politician and statesman; it should be the 
issue at every election, and the subject of daily 
suppKcation at the throne of grace, till the en- 
lightened public mind is concentrated and brought 
up to that high and firm moral position where it 
will say, with authority that can not be resisted, 
"Here shaH thy proud waves be staid." With 
humble reliance upon divine Providence the nation 
should come at once to this point and act upon the 
principle, fully prepared in feeling and purpose to 
meet all the consequences, be they what they may, 
perfectly assured that they can not be equal to 
the incurable evil of the extension of slavery. 
The American citizens who have the political and 
moral right and power to act, are entirely compe- 
tent peaceably to accomplish this work. 

There is no reasonable doubt that the moral con- 
victions and sober judgment of four-fifths, if not 
nine-tenths, of the nation are in sympathy with this 
doctrine, and when the issue is honestly made and 
fairly presented, they will act with a harmony and 
force that can not be resisted. That in such an 
issue portentous clouds will arise, and predictions 
and threats of disunion and ruin fall upon the 
public ear, may be expected; but with justice in 
the premises, firm conviction of moral duty in the 
process, and God to control the storm and direct 
the result, the evils will be averted, the object 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 857 

secured, the nation blessed, and the Divine name 
honored. I have not a doubt that the interests 
of this nation, for weal or woe, are staked on the 
doctrines of the extension or restriction of the 
system of slavery. Its extension will be as the 
letting out of the bitter waters of strife, which 
will flow with a desolating influence, sweeping 
away the liberties and fairest prospects of this re- 
public under the despotism of the slavery power, 
till it provokes the wrath of Heaven and mingles 
in its streams the blood and violence of revolution, 
and adds ours to the number of ungodly governments 
and wicked nations, swept from the earth by the 
retributive judgments of an insulted Providence ! 
Its restriction is founded in justice, will be ap- 
proved of God, and will be the first effective step 
in laying permanently the foundation for the final 
overthrow of the whole system. None know bet- 
ter than slave-owners, that to confine slavery is 
to render it unprofitable and consequently to ruin 
it; hence the struggles for its extension. 

This permanently settled in the public mind as 
the principle of unremitted action, that slavery 
can not, must not, shall not, be extended, would 
banish the idea of reopening the accursed African 
slave-trade, and would soon be followed by a uni- 
versal conviction that the system of slavery, at 
no remote period, must be abandoned. This 



358 BEVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

would appeal to, and call out, the patriotism, 
wisdom, and benevolence of the nation to do jus- 
tice to all concerned, in disposing of a subject and 
system now, of all others, the most threatening to 
the peace, prosperity, and perpetuity of the repub- 
lic. Firmly believing that its restriction would be 
the commencement of the speedy downfall of 
slavery in this land, if my voice could reach the 
ear of every man in the nation, I would venture, 
most respectfully, to plead that, by his desire for 
the peace and happiness of the nation, by his love 
of justice and humanity, by his abhorrence of the 
oppression and degradation of men, and by the 
fear and love of God, he rest not till the great 
"fact is fixed" — slavery is prohibited — ahsolutdy 
prohibited from ever extending its area in this 
country. 

2. There is a fearful moral responsibility resting 
on the nation in regard to another feature of the 
system, which is also one of its chief supports, 
and which can only be reached indirectly, and by 
moral force and influence; namely, the open, con- 
stant, and authoritative desecration of the marriage 
relation among those who are held as slaves. It 
is past belief, if the facts were not overwhelming, 
that in a civilized and Christian country — a land 
of Bibles, churches, ministers, Sabbaths, Gospel 
ordinances, religious presses, and every thing per- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 359 

taining to the highest standard of civHizatioii and 
Christianity— an institution should exist and be 
sustained by public consent and legislative author- 
ity, which outrages and sets at defiance one of 
the plainest, most important, and authoritative laws 

of God. 

The law of marriage was the first ad of God in 
regard to human relations and society; it was the 
law of Eden, the law of Sinai, the law of Calvary; 
it is the law of Christianity, civilization, wisdom, 
goodness, and justice. The sins of theft, robbery, 
and murder are not more palpably the violation 
of the law of God— nor half so insulting to his 
authority— than is the desecration of the marriage 
relation by the system of American slavery. 

The system does not recognize either the law or 
the relation it creates, but specially provides to 
desecrate both, by sundering for life those who are 
united in faith and affection, and living together 
morally as man and wife. The provisions and 
operations of the system on this subject are an 
offense to civilization, a reproach to Christianity, a 
disgrace to the nation, an indignity to the law of 
God, an insult to Jehovah! From the fireside, 
the social circle, the legislative councils, the popu- 
lar assembly, the pulpit, and the press, the nation, 
in self-defense, should send out a remonstrance 
that should be heard and felt throughout Chris- 

31 



860 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

tendom and the civilized world, till those who have 
the power either change the system or are dis- 
carded by civilized society as enemies of the gov- 
ernment of God, and friends and supporters of the 
most odious and revolting barbarism. And what 
renders this case still more surprising and omin- 
ous of evil, indicating, indeed, a state o^ judicial 
blindness, ripening for judgment, is that men pro- 
fessing Christianity — " the love of God shed abroad 
in their hearts by the Holy Spirit" — and statedly 
communing at the "Lord's supper," and ministers 
of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and grave 
doctors of divinity, should be among the first and 
most ardent supporters and patrons of this hea- 
thenish system of breaking up domestic relations, 
and setting at defiance the order and government 
of God, in regard to the law of marriage and the 
relations and duties it creates. 

I can scarcely restrain my pen from writing se- 
verely on the subject, for the enormity of the offense 
is humiliation to the American name, and alarming 
in the sight Heaven as to its final results to our 
nation and our common Christianity. No man 
should be allowed membership in the Church of 
God, or be admitted to communion and fellowship 
with Christians, who does not denounce this mon- 
strous sin against the order of God and the inter- 
ests of man, and use all his influence religiously 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 361 

and politically to banish it from the whole land. It 
gives me great pleasure, dear sir, to hear you say, 
"The custom of separating man and wife is the 
remnant of a barbarous age: any gentleman should 
be ashamed of it." (Page 316.) That to honor 
God and do justice to the oppressed in this par- 
ticular, would strike another fatal blow at this na- 
tional sin of slavery, is readily admitted; and it 
is for this very reason that we would entreat every 
patriot, every friend of freedom, every philan- 
thropist, every Christian to exert all his influence 
with God and men, till this crying sin of "^sep- 
arating those whom God hath joined together" no 
longer be the disgrace of our nation and of our 

name. 

3. That the laws of civilization, that Christi- 
anity, justice, humanity, and God, require that 
the rising generation of the enslaved in this 
country be taught the knowledge of letters, at 
least to the extent of the elementary principles 
of a practical education, must be the conviction of 
every mind, and especially every Christian mind, 
that will reflect soberly on the subject in the light 
of the Bible, the honor of the nation, and the 
eternal interests of those for whom I plead. The 
policy of shutting out the light from the minds of 
the slaves is not only a sin- against the authority of 
God and the intellectual constitution of man, which 



862 REVIEW OP THE PHILOSOPHY 

was formed by Infinite Wisdom for the acquisition 
of wisdom and knowledge, but it is the accumu- 
lation of an amount of ignorance and superstition 
which may one day burst as an earthquake, and 
rush with the resistlessness of an avalanche upon 
this nation; and especially if the sin of slavery, 
with other national crimes, provoke the chastising 
judgments of God. But as every state in this 
Union has, indirectly or directly, contributed to 
this ignorance and degradation of the slaves in 
patronizing the system by consuming its products, 
the sin is national and the responsibility is na- 
tional. As the action of the free states in sup- 
porting the system and producing the evil is indi- 
rect, so, hkewise, it can only be indirect in remov- 
ing the evil. There are various means by which 
thismay be effected. Wholly to withdraw their pat- 
ronage would at once paralyze the system, and in 
the end destroy it; but this alone would not edu- 
cate the slaves. 

If the system were annihilated at a stroke, the 
moral responsibility of educating the emancipated 
would still rest upon the nation. (1.) The free 
states can meet and throw off their responsibility 
only by enlightening and concentrating public 
opinion on this subject. (2.) By using their in- 
fluence in the national councils to establish a sys- 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 



363 



tern of education in the District of Columbia, over 
which Congress has legislative control, that would 
provide at least one year's schooling for all colored 
and slave children between the age of ten and 
fifteen years. (3.) By creating a fund in each 
state, which would amount in the aggregate to, at 
least, two-thirds of the expense of tuition for one 
year, of all slave children within the above ages. 
That the system of slavery, as such, would receive 
any such measures as here indicated with favor, is 
what no one acquainted with its spirit and design 
will believe ; but that, under the rulings of divine 
Providence, some one of the slaveholding states 
should make an incurable breach upon the system 
by countenancing and avaihng itself of such pro- 
visions, is not impossible or past belief Who that 
believes in the presence and power of Providence 
in the administration of the affairs of states and 
nations, will affirm that, if one of the' free states 
should inaugurate such an enterprise, and author- 
ize the first slaveholding state that introduced 
such a system of education, to draw on its funds 
for that purpose, no state would ever respond to 
the proposition? But whatever might be the re- 
sult, the free states, and the friends of humamty 
throughout the nation, can never stand acquitted 
before God till they have put forth every peaceable 



31* 



364 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

effort in their power to remove this curse of igno- 
rance from the oppressed millions in bondage in 
our, otherwise, honorable and happy country. 

4. The genius of our civil government and of 
human liberty, the spirit of Christianity, the claims 
of justice, and the order God has ordained in hu- 
man society, all imperatively demand, that every 
child born within the limits of our government, 
whatever may be the color or condition of the 
parents, should, from the moment of its birth, be 
free, so far as to be released from all relations to 
law as property or a chattel, and to be placed in 
such a situation as to enjoy all the benefits of our 
civiHzation and of our Christianity. This will be 
the finishing stroke to the system of American 
slavery ; and however remote and utterly improb- 
able such an event may be at the present, it must 
occur at no very distant day, or God's judgments 
will assuredly visit this nation. The responsibil- 
ity of this, and several other features of the sys- 
tem of American slavery, rests directly upon the 
slaveholding states; while the responsibility of ar- 
resting the further extension of the evils and 
curse of the system rests directly upon the free 
states. 

Men do not generally cease from evil till they 
are penetrated with the conviction that they are 
in conflict with a power which can arrest and pun- 



AND PRACTICiS OF SLAVERY. 



365 



isli, or destroy them if they persist in wrong; 
when fully convinced of this, they reform and be- 
come virtuous as the only means of safety and 
self-preservation. The same is true of institutions 
and governments; hence, it is folly in the extreme 
to suppose the system of slavery in this country 
will ever relax its hold upon its victims or modify 
its evils, till it feels to its very heart that it is en- 
countering a power— the honor, the justice, the 
conscience, the religion, and the spirit of liberty 
of this nation— which can and will bind it in its 
own prison and hold it there to meet its own doom. 
I repeat, the freemen of this republic are bound to 
this work in sheer self-defense, and as a moral and 
poUiical duty to posterity and to God. Whenever 
the free states, in absolute self-defense, shall re- 
strict slavery to its present limits, and turn it 
back upon itself, the slaveholding states will be 
brought, in self-defense, to choose between the 
modifications in substance, as here indicated, and 
others, preparatory to a final abandonment of the 
svstem, and its destruction by its own power. 
Confine it to its present territory, and in one gen- 
eration it will expire in universal bankruptcy or in 
blood! if no measures are taken for gradual and 
final emancipation. If the freemen and Christians 
of America do their duty in this respect, and 
Providence be propitious, at no remote period the 



366 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

spirit of emancipation will pervade this nation, the 
south not excepted. Hence, 

5. Another moral obligation of national duty 
will arise; namely, to compensate to a certain ex- 
tent those who may be willing to emancipate their 
slaves. The limits of this letter will not allow a 
discussion of this subject here, other than to ex- 
press my firm conviction both of its justice and 
practicability. It is just; for as the slaveholders 
have made large investments in this kind of prop- 
erty — falsely so called — and the free states have 
profited by millions in patronizing the system and 
consuming its products, if the peace and safety of 
the nation require its abandonment, those who 
have shared in its profits should help to sustain 
the loss. It is practicable; the wealth of the na- 
tion, if properly administered, is amply sufficient 
to meet such a demand with all other just claims 
without embarrassment. The public domain and 
even a direct tax, if it were necessary, could be 
rendered available for the purpose at the will of 
the nation. And who that deserves the name of 
an American would refuse to pay a reasonable di- 
rect tax, for a limited period, for the accomplish- 
ment of an object of such magnitude for good to 
so many millions of the oppressed, and that would 
reflect so much honor upon the nation, and doubt- 
less propitiate the smiles and favor of Heaven? 



AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY. 367 

To many who profess to be the friends of the 
slave, and to many more who are the friends of 
slavery, all this will appear to be more than vis- 
ionary, even intensely absurd and impossible ; it is, 
nevertheless, true that difficulties frequently ap- 
pear greatest when viewed in the distance, and 
diminish on a near approach. Many things have 
appeared impossible when contemplated afar off, 
but when brought to a practical test were found to 
be entirely practicable; and such, we hope, by the 
overruling hand of God, will be the fact in regard 
to the difficulties of abolishing the system of 
American slavery. And should the period arrive 
when emancipation is fully determined on, and the 
process fairly commenced, another national duty 
will arise; namely, 

6. To aid all the emancipated who may so de- 
sire to return to their "father-land;" and here, 
dear sir, I am glad to be fully in sympath}^ with 
you as to the importance of African colonization. 
Individual enterprise and private benevolence, 
without any direct aid from government, have fully 
demonstrated the practicability of colonizing the 
colored people of this country in Africa; and the 
present prosperous condition and the future pros- 
pects of the republic of Liberia, furnish the clear- 
est indications of Divine smiles upon the enter- 
prise. In all this a wise Providence has opened a 



368 REVIEW OF THE PHILOSOPHY 

wide door by which the American people may, if 
they will, escape the evils and threatened calami- 
ties of slavery and do justice, to some extent, to a 
long-neglected and shamefully-oppressed people 
both in this country and in Africa. 

What individual enterprise has accomplished in 
so short a time, in the work of colonization, has 
demonstrated what might be done should it become 
the work of the nation; if public sentiment so 
directed, it could be effected through the agency 
of the general government, to any extent desired, 
even to the entire separation of the two races. 
And if the light of even an elementary education 
was let in upon the African minds in this country, 
it would soon discover to them that Africa is their 
real home, and the only land where they can reach 
that high position in social and political life for 
which man was made; and they would seek that 
home as fast as the good of all concerned required, 
till the dark and portentous cloud of slavery, 
which now hangs over our political and national 
horizon, would vanish forever from our vision ; and, 
wholly transformed, would rise a "pillar of light" 
on the dark continent of Africa; and, under the 
directions of divine Providence, spread the bless- 
ings of civiUzation and a pure Christianity among 
the unnumbered millions of that vast country — 
that quarter of our globe. Whether the Ameri- 



AND PRACTICE 0¥ SLAVERY. 369 

can people will follow the openings of Providence, 
meet their individual and national responsibihties, 
arrest the ravages of slavery by confining it abso- 
lutely to its present limits, and thereby lay the 
foundation for the final abolishment of the system ; 
or whether they will yield all those great interests 
involved into the hands of sectional and selfish 
politicians, and infatuated, slavery-defending minis- 
ters, to lead them blindfold into the fires of revo- 
lution and national disaster, time only will reveal. 

It should be written, as with a sunbeam, on every 
American's heart — The American people 7nust de- 
stroy the system of slavery, or American slavery 
will destroy this republic; and every heart should 
be fired with patriotic and pious zeal, to use every 
means and effort consistent with Christian princi- 
ples, to effect the former and to prevent the latter. 
Whatever may be the final results on this great 
question, in closing these letters I feel conscious 
that, to some extent, I have met individual re- 
sponsibihty and duty, in bearing an honest testi- 
mony against the enormous sin of American 
slavery, as I expect to answer at the bar of God. 

Yours respectfully, in the bonds of Christian 
charity, 

John H. Power. 

THE END. 



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